The Allegory of the Cave
by delishe
Summary: Seventeen years and two Nobel prizes later, Sheldon returns moves back to Pasadena. Everyone's sort of happy in spite of everything... especially Leonard and Penny's teenage daughter, Adelle.
1. Chapter 1

It started rather simply, as most things do, with Leonard checking his email on the family computer as she peeled potatoes while singing to bad teen pop that, ironically, her teenage daughter hated.

"Penny!" Leonard called, "come here!"

She set down the potato she was holding and turned down the volume. "What?" she asked, rinsing her hands briefly and striding over.

"Sheldon emailed me," Leonard explained, tilting the screen so she could get a better view, "he said he's moving back to California."

"No kidding!" Penny gasped, reading the message quickly. "He's going back to work at the University?"

"Yeah, apparently Caltech is giving him his job back, with a promotion and a huge raise," Leonard said, hitting reply, "which is unsurprising, given the whole, won two Nobel Prizes thing. If he asked they'd probably give him paper towels and hand sanitizer in the men's room."

"Well, he _is_ the Doctor Sheldon Cooper right now," Penny smiled, "this is great news! Has he got some place to live? Adelle would be so pleased."

"Adelle would be so pleased about what?" their bespectacled teenage daughter asked, as she walked into the living room and headed for the refrigerator, a thick college Physics textbook in hand.

"Your Godfather's moving back to Pasedena," Penny told her brightly, beaming. The words had their desired effect, Adelle froze where she stood and her eyes grew huge.

"My Godfather – Dr. Sheldon Cooper – he, he's moving back here?" she gaped in disbelief. Penny was momentarily reminded of a tall, praying mantis-like man whose voice had shook in the same way upon being gifted with a napkin signed by Leonard Nimoy.

"Yep, he got a job back at the University," Leonard supplied helpfully, but Adelle wasn't looking at him.

"Oh my – Oh my God! That's awesome! I can't believe – Oh God, I've got to blog about this," Adelle rushed out up the stairs, practically flailing a little. Only the mention of Sheldon Cooper could reduce their usually dignified daughter into a squealing, teenage-slang using fangirl.

"People with weak ankles shouldn't run up the stairs," Penny called after her, but was given the sound of a slamming door in response.  
She shook her head, smiling fondly. Never in a million years would she ever have considered the possibility that her daughter would be a huge Sheldon Cooper fan. Adelle Hofstadter had never met her Godfather since she was a toddler, but she adored him. While she had always enjoyed the admiration from her schoolmates at having a famous Godfather, her obsession with Sheldon began the moment she was able to read his books when she was nine. By eleven she had read most of his papers and covered them with Post-Its full of questions she would later clarify with her father, and Sheldon's autobiography lay on her bedside table, with paragraphs she found especially inspiring highlighted and flagged. It fell open to the page in a chapter discussing Sheldon's childhood: in the section where he described his relationship with his grandmother, there was a small footnote about how his best friends Leonard and Penny Hofstadter had named their first daughter, also his god daughter, after her.

Penny glanced at Leonard, who was studiously typing out an email to Sheldon, and trying with little success to contain his displeasure. He had never really approved of Adelle's fascination with his best friend. She suspected that while most little girls went through a stage where they wanted to marry their fathers, Adelle would have picked Sheldon without question. It had been clear from the start that Adelle only had one hero in her life and that was Sheldon, and Leonard hardly appreciated being second best to his daughter, of all people. Even after all these years Leonard still had that insecure streak. Penny suppressed a sigh, "You wanna talk about – whatever it is you're trying to hide from me?"

"Trying to hide from you - ? I'm not trying to hide anything from you. There's nothing to hide. Nothing. Nothing's hidden," he rambled, as he often did when he was upset. Penny stroked his hair.

"Come on, Leonard," she said soothingly, "You know that even if Adelle admires Sheldon, she's never even met him. You're still her father. She loves you."

"You've got a point. She's never met Sheldon, she's only read his work, and she's obviously taken in by his brilliance," Leonard said, his voice light, though there was something vicious in it. "No one could still be blinded by his brilliance once they're introduced to his – pigheadedness."

Penny whacked him on the shoulder. "Leonard!"

"I'm sorry, just – " Leonard twisted his body to face her, "Remember that psychotic undergraduate who was always following Sheldon around and trying to help him with his work?"

Penny's lips twitched. "Which one?"

"Any one, it doesn't matter," Leonard rolled his eyes, "the point is, I never thought my daughter would be like that, you know? Why would she have to? I mean, she has me, right?"

"Sweetie, Adelle does appreciate your Scientific knowledge too! I mean, she's always asking you for help with this paper, and that experiment – "

"Yeah," Leonard said dourly, "But only if Sheldon's papers don't offer an answer."

-

Up to the weeks preceding Sheldon's arrival, Adelle had been nothing but a ridiculous ball of anticipatory energy. The apartment Sheldon had found was pretty close to the two-storey house they occupied, and Adelle was already looking forward to the almost-daily dinners they would have together, just like before she was born.

"Uncle Howard can come on weekends with Aunt Bernadette," she said excitedly, "and Uncle Raj can bring Deepa! Oh – oh God, it'll be so cool!" Raj was the last one of the three in the group who actually had a known sexuality to get married, due to his "woman problem", but finally started seeing a Psychiatrist due to his parents' constant cajoling. The sessions must have worked, because he eventually hooked up with his Psychiatrist's assistant.

It was nice seeing Adelle so excited. Penny was well aware that her daughter was no average teenage girl. She was by no means at Sheldon's, or even Leonard's, standard of genius, but she still had an IQ of 157, and had entered college at fifteen. Adelle spoke like an adult by the time she was six, and at eight was already having intellectual dinner conversations with her father and beloved Uncles that Penny could not even try to keep up with. As a result, Adelle was hardly excited over anything Penny could have a stake in, not popular fiction or new movies or clothes. Sure, Penny now made a decent living as a journalist in a local paper, and Adelle had depended on her for help in some of her writing assignments, but even that didn't last long. Somehow Penny had felt that in having a daughter as independent and intelligent as Adelle, she had somehow been robbed of the experience of being a mother. Sure, Sheldon had been a genius, but he still behaved like a child at times, even when he was an adult, and demanded to be looked after. Adelle had been half an adult from the moment she learnt to dress herself.

"Baby," Penny started, and Adelle grimaced instinctively, never having liked the nickname, "when Sheldon arrives tomorrow, you have to be careful not to overwhelm him."

"Yes, mother, I'm not a child," Adelle said, not disrespectfully, but with an unmistakable note of derision.

I know, baby, Penny thought. She bit her lip. She hadn't wanted to bring this up at first, but somehow, she didn't want to risk Adelle being caught unaware tomorrow and becoming devastated. Adelle had known that, from what her parents and Uncles had told her, Sheldon paid ruthless attention to detail and routine, that he hardly tolerated inconveniences, and was generally not particularly fond of people in general. But Penny wasn't sure Adelle had really considered those aspects of her idol's personalities.

"Sweetie, can I talk to you for a moment?" Penny asked gently.

Adelle blinked, "Aren't we talking now?"

"Yeah, well – " Penny broke off awkwardly, before continuing, "I just wanted you to know that sometimes, when we idolise people too much, like you do with Sheldon – "

"I won't quite put it as idolise, per se," Adelle interrupted, "I admire him greatly, but not quite to the extent of idolisation."

"Alright. Admire," Penny gave Adelle a testy look that quickly shut her up, "Sometimes when we admire people too much, we have unrealistic expectations of them. And when that happens, sometimes we're – disappointed." She glanced at her daughter, who was furrowing her brow. "Don't do that honey, you'll get wrinkles." Adelle quickly relaxed her face and scowled. "I just don't want you to, y'know, expect too much from Sheldon. He's as human as we are, despite being a really smart cookie."

Adelle was silent for a moment, and when she spoke Penny did not expect the words that came from her mouth, "Mother, did you ever like Sheldon?"

"Of course I did! I do," Penny said, surprised, "He's one of my best friends."

"Well, I…" Adelle wrung her hands, "I always wondered why he never came to visit. Especially since he and Father were supposed to be best friends. And you guys never seemed to talk a lot on the phone or email much… We didn't even visit when he got his second Nobel Prize. It all seemed rather odd."

Why hadn't they, indeed? Because they knew Sheldon would be insufferable after he had won not one, but two Nobel prizes? Because they were all getting older and knew they would never achieve half of what Sheldon had so far? Because deep down, they all knew that if not for them, Sheldon would have received his third Nobel Prize by now?

Adelle patted her mother's hand. Penny blinked, breaking out of her reverie. "It's alright, Mother," Adelle said, smiling her strange smile that Penny had somehow never been able to describe. It somehow made her think that Adelle had known the answer all along, but only wanted to hear her say it. "You don't have to tell me."

"It's – It's late, dear," Penny said, after awhile, "You should go to bed."

"I tried getting Adelle mentally prepared for Sheldon," Penny told Leonard that night, as they got into bed. Leonard snorted.

"Nothing could ever get anyone ready for Sheldon," he pointed out.

"Don't let her hear you say that," Penny warned. Insulting Sheldon, which had become a habit for all four of them, became difficult once Adelle came into the picture. "Anyway, she asked about – why we didn't really keep in touch with Sheldon when he was gone."

"What did you tell her?" Leonard asked, climbing into bed.

"I didn't say anything," Penny admitted honestly, "I don't know the answer myself."

Leonard only sighed. "Turn off the light, Penny. It's late."

-

Sheldon was flying in from Massachusetts, despite his preference for trains, and the next afternoon found Leonard, Penny, Howard, Raj and Adelle waiting anxiously for Sheldon's arrival at the airport. He had texted them earlier with an estimated time of arrival, and again when he touched down. Adelle, who had been on some sort of adrenaline high the whole car ride here, had fallen into a nervous silence, reading and re-reading the same paragraph in a book on cosmology.

Surprisingly, when Sheldon appeared exactly when he said he would, suitcase and laptop bag in hand, it was Leonard who bodily launched himself at the taller man, hugging him awkwardly around the middle for about twenty seconds before Sheldon calmly told him to let go. The others followed with their greetings and welcomes, though significantly less physically affectionate, except for Penny, who threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek, just to see him squirm.

Sheldon regarded the last member of his welcome party with a slight scepticism, as he tended to do with people he had not met before. Of course, he had met this young girl, but she had only been an infant then, capable of little more than crying hysterically and interrupting everybody's circadian rhythms. But she was sixteen now, his eidetic memory told him, her last birthday had been two months and twenty three days ago. She was clearly Leonard's daughter, his DNA was written all over her dark hair and dark eyes, but she definitely had Penny's prettiness, despite it being obscured somewhat by her serious demeanour and thick glasses.

"Hi," the girl said shyly, her hands clasped behind her back. "I'm Adelle."

He nodded, "I know. I'm Dr. Cooper," he paused for a moment, "I suppose you may call me Sheldon, despite the age difference between us. I would prefer it to you referring to me as 'Uncle.'"

Adelle's eyes brightened. Yes, that was definitely all Penny, that bright enthusiasm. "I'm really glad you're moving back, Sheldon," she said earnestly, "I'm a great fan of your work. I just finished your latest paper last night, it was brilliant! If you don't mind, I have some questions about it, but I know you're a busy man so I've kept them as short as possible…"

Oh, another fan. Sheldon had gotten somewhat used to the popularity and attention since he received his first Nobel Prize, and to an extent, he expected it. He was, after all, the only Nobel laureate to date other than Linus Pauling to win two unshared Nobel prizes. But he had not looked for it in a daughter of Leonard and Penny Hofstadter, though. "I was not aware you were interested in my work," he told Adelle, who smiled modestly. "Though it is rather unsurprising you do."

"My area of interest is Cosmology, though I find String Theory and M-Theory fascinating as well," she explained.

"Of course you do," Sheldon said, "I do recall your father mentioning that you started college at Caltech last year?" Adelle nodded. "Not unimpressive," he noted, and she seemed to positively glow with joy.

"So, when do you start work at the University, Sheldon?" Leonard asked, deliberately cutting into the conversation.

"Tuesday," Sheldon said immediately, "that gives me a day to unpack and get my new apartment organised."

"Oh, I've on off-day tomorrow too," Penny said enthusiastically, "I could come over and help you get organised!"

Sheldon snorted. "While I doubt your ability to help me, as you put it, 'get organised', given your inferior organisational ability, I would appreciate the extra muscle."

Penny forced a smile and rolled her eyes, "You're very welcome, Sheldon." Some things really never did change.

-

"Deepa apologises for not being able to come," Raj said, as they piled into Leonard's six-seater. "She had to do some extra shifts at the clinic."

"Oh, your new lady friend?" Sheldon asked, "I'd heard that you had gotten over your little problem. Congratulations."

"It's not a big deal," Raj said modestly, looking pleased with himself.

"Considering how you once couldn't be in the same room with an attractive woman – or, as you admitted yourself, an effeminate man – without wetting yourself, I would consider it a sterling achievement indeed," Sheldon said honestly. "You shouldn't belittle your accomplishments, Raj, they're limited enough in range as it is."

Adelle giggled. "Really, Uncle Raj? You couldn't be in the same room with a woman without wetting yourself?"

Raj scowled, "An attractive woman," he clarified, as if it made all the difference.

"Don't forget effeminate men," Howard added helpfully.

"Which makes it a wonder I was able to talk around you, Howard," Raj shot back, glaring at his best friend, who looked affronted and made a face.

"I like having you around, Sheldon," Adelle chirped, "Everything is so much more interesting. Tell me more embarrassing stories about my parents and Uncle Howard and Uncle Raj!"

"Well," Sheldon said, considering, "there was this one time when the four of us, that is your father, Howard, Raj and I were doing an experiment in which we attempted to reflect a laser off reflectors that Apollo 11 had positioned on the moon in 1969. Anyway, your father thought it would be a good idea to invite your mother, only she had her boyfriend of the day with her at the time. And he thought we were going to blow up the moon."

Penny gave a little yelp, "Well, the first time I met Sheldon and your father, they had just tried to masturbate for money. Additionally, Sheldon once strung up my underwear on a telephone wire."

"You can masturbate for money?" Adelle asked, amazed, "Also, you've touched my mom's underwear?" she asked Sheldon, as if intrigued by the idea.

"We were going to sell semen," Leonard corrected, almost huffily, "and he stole her laundry. Nothing more."

"On another occasion, Howard once got the Mars Rover stuck in a ditch because he tried to pick up a girl at a club by offering to let her drive a top-secret government project," Sheldon continued, unfazed, "Oh, and then Leonard proceeded to steal her."

"You stole Uncle Howard's girlfriend?" Adelle gaped at her father, who was struggling to keep his eyes on the road.

"Yes, Leonard, go ahead, tell your daughter about how you stole Uncle Howard's girlfriend," Howard ut in, narrowing his eyes at at his friend.

"Well, she was less of a girlfriend and more of just a date, really…" Leonard trailed off. "On a related note, Howard once sent a malfunctioning toilet into space that basically spewed faeces into the spacecraft after a few flushes. The whole rocket was unliveable in days."

"Seriously, Uncle Howard? That was you?" Adelle asked, horrified but amused.

"Well, in his defence, he only had a Masters degree at that point of time," Sheldon pointed out matter-of-factly, "Oh, congratulations on your Doctorate, by the way."

Howard accepted the congratulations through clenched teeth. "Any stories on Raj, Sheldon? We haven't heard about Raj in awhile."

"Excuse me?" Raj nearly squeaked, "Alright, let's not forget that time Sheldon won the Chancellor award, was too afraid to give his speech, resulting in Penny giving him alcohol and him mooning the audience!"

There was a petulant silence from Sheldon as the others burst into laughter at his expense, before he turned to Adelle with narrowed but respectful eyes, "Very impressive, Adelle."

"I'm sorry?" her brown eyes – Leonard's eyes – were wide and guileless.

"Very clever, turning us against each other for your own entertainment," he said begrudgingly, "You're almost as evil as your mother."

"My mother?" Adelle asked, the corner of her mouth curved upward, possibly in anticipation of another story, "Evil?"

"Never underestimate your mother's prowess, child," Sheldon said wisely, raising a finger, "her wickedness knows no bounds. For example, she once ruined laundry night."

-

They stopped off at Sheldon's apartment first, and though he'd already had his assistant make sure some basic furniture was set up, he insisted on unpacking and rearranging everything until he was satisfied, before making everyone take a trip down to the grocery store with him so he could stock up the pantry. Somehow, Adelle, who had always hated any sort of shopping that did not involve books, was more than happy to help her Godfather, pushing the trolley as he loaded it up with Sheldon-approved cereal, Sheldon-approved toiletries, Sheldon-approved pasta sauce.

"You might be interested to know that contrary to popular belief, Marco Polo did not bring pasta from China to Italy. In fact, archaeologists have found the will of a Genoan soldier who requested "bariscella peina de macarone", which is, literally, a small basket of macaroni. His will is dated 1279, 16 years before Marco Polo returned from China," Sheldon told Adelle, as he tried to decide between spaghetti and linguini.

Penny was about to make some snide comment warning Sheldon not to bore her daughter to death when Adelle actually laughed and said in a remarkably Sheldon-like manner, "Really? How fascinating!" Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Leonard briefly make a face as he examined a box of fettuccini.

At evening they got take-out, which they brought back to Leonard and Penny's house. Sheldon complimented the architecture and Penny's petunia plants, though he did have quite a lot to say about the financial impracticality of a two-storey house for a family of three. "It was the only house Penny wanted to live in," Leonard shrugged, "and we could afford it. We still can."

"Well in which case, it's a good thing that your daughter's so intelligent, because between the house and Penny's compulsion for purchasing new shoes, Adelle would hardly be able to receive higher education or complete an advanced degree without some sort of scholarship," Sheldon scoffed.

"Are you implying I'm unable to manage my own finances?" Penny demanded, glaring at her friend.

"Are you able to manage your own finances?" Sheldon asked, looking at her earnestly. She scowled.

"Yes, Adelle created me an excel spreadsheet and wrote me a budget when she was six."

Adelle nodded, "She's made remarkable progress. I limited her to only one new pair of shoes every six months, and only if a pre-existing pair wears out."

"Well, it's a good thing you have your daughter, because between your own lack of self control and your husband's complete inability to correct anything you do wrong, you would have driven your family to bankruptcy by now," Sheldon pointed out.

"Sheldon! Be nice to my mom," Adelle protested, and Penny was so surprised her daughter was standing up for her to Sheldon, of all people, she didn't notice that Leonard had been insulted too.

The rest of the evening passed rather smoothly, or as smoothly as it could go for a group with members as socially inept as they were.

There was none of that usual awkwardness between friends who had not spoken in years, Sheldon filled up any semblance of silence with ramblings of what it was like to be a Nobel prize winner, having to pick and choose the public appearances he was forced to make, writing opening address after opening address where he could not be the slightest bit honest about the intelligence (or lack thereof) of the event organisers. It seemed that the boys, though all slightly jealous, were curious enough about what Sheldon's life had been like all these years apart, since the questions came steadily not just from Adelle and Penny, but from all of them.

Sheldon (and Adelle, for that matter) had to be in bed by eleven, and when the Hofstadters got back from sending Sheldon home, Adelle was beaming from ear to ear. "I feel like my family's been completed," she declared, before hugging both her parents tightly and bouncing up to her bedroom.

Penny looked at Leonard. "Y'know, it's odd that I'm saying this, but it is slightly comforting that after all these years, some things never change."

"Perhaps, but except now we have a teenage daughter who makes it impossible for us to even defend ourselves against the madness that is Sheldon Lee Cooper," Leonard pointed out, before falling silent for a moment. "Penny, do you think Adelle would rather have Sheldon as a father?"

"What? Don't be ridiculous! Sheldon would make a terrible father, everyone knows that," Penny exclaimed.

"Everyone except Adelle, as it turns out," Leonard said quietly, and Penny found that, as usual, she had no answer for her husband.


	2. Chapter 2

Monday mornings were always the worst, even when she didn't have to work, simply because Leonard and Adelle always wore matching looks of doom and dread. People always said Adelle looked more like Penny, but on Monday mornings, she was Leonard's daughter through and through.

"Father, could I print my report out in your office before class? The printer ran out of ink last night," Adelle asked, as she finished the last of her cereal.

"Sure thing," Leonard replied, rubbing his eyes, "I'll stop and get a new cartridge after work today."

"Thanks, Father," Adelle intoned dully, now dragging a comb through her hair.

"We've got to leave even earlier tomorrow morning, Delly," Leonard told his daughter, "Since we've got to pick up Sheldon."

"Oh yeah," Adelle made a face, "Darn. It's too bad we don't all go to UC Berkeley, though. They have a whole car park for Nobel laureates."

"Wait 'till you see Sheldon's new office. It more than makes up for that," Leonard snorted, glancing at his watch. "Let's go, Adelle, you'll be late for class if you're going to print your paper first."

Penny herded her troops out of the door and did the dishes. She considered taking a nap before going over to Sheldon's place, but did not want to even think of the lecture she would get if she arrived late. "The things I do for my whack-a-doodle," she sighed, grabbing the keys from the bowl.

"Good morning, Penny," Sheldon greeted her brightly as he opened the door, "Thank you for getting up before 11 a.m. to help me get my new apartment fit for living."

Penny stepped into the living room. It was already neater and more organised than any house she'd ever lived in. "You forget, Sheldon, I'm a mother now," she reminded him, "I have to wake up at six thirty even on my off days to feed my family."

"Couldn't Adelle and Leonard prepare their own breakfast?" Sheldon asked, puzzled, "Adelle definitely seems independent enough to pour some cereal into a bowl and add milk."

"Yeah, trust me, Adelle would cook for all of us if I let her," Penny said wearily, rolling her eyes. "So, what are we doing today?"

"Well, I've already organised my collection of Action Figures and Sci-Fi memorabilia, so we're going to organise my home library, and then finish labelling the rest of my kitchen utensils," Sheldon informed her, before asking, "So, if Adelle is more than capable of feeding herself, than why is it necessary for you to prepare her breakfast?"

"Sounds like fun," Penny's attempt at faking enthusiasm crashed and burned like one of those race cars in the first Star Wars movie, but Sheldon didn't seem to notice, "Well, because Adelle's still a kid, and I haven't been able to help her with her homework since she was eight. Preparing her meals is the least I can do as a mother."

"So your concern is with preserving the integrity of your mother-daughter relationship?" Sheldon asked, as he carefully opened a cardboard box full of comic books with a pen knife.

"Well, yeah," all those years living with a genius daughter and husband meant she was still able to decipher Sheldon-speak.

Sheldon shrugged, and motioned for her to help him with the books. She sat down on the floor beside him. "I suppose that's natural, since she has already been helping you with your finances, on top of, as you mentioned, having surpassed you intellectually eons ago," Sheldon remarked.

"Oh yeah, about that," Penny bristled, "I would appreciate it if you spoke to me with a little more respect in front of my daughter." The pen knife in her hand flew across the top of the cardboard box in one sharp stroke, opening it immediately.

Sheldon blinked, confused. "Are you perhaps referring to what I said yesterday about the high likelihood you would have caused your family endless financial strife if not for Adelle's interference?"

"Of course I'm referring to that!" Stroke, slash, another box is opened. Sheldon frowned at her disapprovingly for a moment before replying.

"I apologise. I was not aware of the protocol for speaking to someone when their teenage daughter is at hand," Sheldon told her, "Not to mention the social obligations of being a Nobel laureate has made it quite impossible for me to speak my mind up until now. I was hoping that being reacquainted with the social group I had before fame descended upon me would rectify that situation."

"So, how did you manage to navigate your way through all the press without offending someone?" Penny asked, curiously. The media attention was not something he had spoken off in great detail last night, though Penny knew, from Adelle's extensive scrap books, that Sheldon had done interview after interview for this magazine and that newspaper.

Sheldon sniffed, "My assistant prepared a list of topics I was not allowed to breach," he sounded offended at the idea that people might not appreciate anything that fell from his lips, "Well, if it makes you feel better, I felt that Adelle was a very charming and intelligent young woman."

"Thank you," Penny beamed, ever the proud mother, and was kinder to the next box of comic books (God, how many of these things did he have, anyway?) "She really adores you, you know. She keeps your autobiography on her bedside table and annotates it."

"That is as to be expected," Sheldon said imperiously, "I did mean for my autobiography to provide some inspiration for aspiring young Scientists whose genius sets them apart from their less intelligent family and friends."

"Well, Adelle does have her father, I hardly think Leonard's less intelligent than Adelle," Penny pointed out, "His IQ is higher than hers."

"True, but remember Richard Feynman had an IQ of 125," Sheldon replied, as if this was common knowledge, "Besides, Adelle's intelligence makes her a child prodigy, whereas Leonard, despite being intelligent as well, was often over-shadowed by his more capable siblings. It's natural for him to be unable to empathise with what Adelle went through during her childhood, and for Adelle to turn to others whose circumstances were more similar to hers as a result."

"Wait – " Penny paused, as she helped him sort his Comic Books into stacks by series, "What do you mean, 'what Adelle went through'?"

Sheldon gave her his look of exhaustion and ever so slight amusement, "Clearly you have not read my autobiography, which offers, in the first section, a concise recount of my experiences as a child prodigy holed up in Texas with a family of religious fanatics."

"Adelle doesn't live with religious fanatics," Penny was almost starting to regret coming here today. Who was Sheldon to assume he understood her daughter after only having met her for barely a day? Sheldon knew a lot of things, but certainly, nothing about teenage girls. "She grew up surrounded by Scientists, for goodness sakes."

"Hmm," Sheldon said, clearly having already thought of an answer to her question, "Tell me, Penny, in the years I've been away, have male Homo Sapiens become any better at having heart-to-heart talks and conversing about their experiences and feelings?"

"No…" Penny frowned, "You're saying that Adelle isolates herself from everyone on every level except the intellectual because she feels no one understands what she goes through as a child prodigy?"

"No, I'm saying that Adelle prefers the company of my publications to the rest of the world because she feels no one else understands what she goes through as a child prodigy," Sheldon explained, "I wasn't aware she isolated herself, though I find that much unsurprising. Or have teenagers finally stopped shutting people out and feeling tragically misunderstood?"

"I suppose you're right," Penny scowled, unhappy at the thought, before sighing, "Adelle's right too. It is nice having you back. Other than my girlfriends, it's difficult talking to the other guys like this."

"Like what?" Sheldon furrowed his brow, confused, as he carefully labelled THE ASTONISHING X-MEN on one of the trays.

Penny shrugged, peeling Sheldon's home-made labels carefully off the sticker-paper and trying her best to make sure they were stuck on straight, "I don't know, just, like friends would. Granted, Raj is nice to talk to now he can actually, well, talk to me, and Howard makes for better company now he isn't hitting on me 24/7, but it's just different. I've always been closer to you and Leonard, and Leonard is just – I feel we aren't talking enough, you know?" she glanced at Sheldon. "Are you still listening?"

"Yes, I am," Sheldon said indifferently, "And I hardly find that surprising as well. As I've said countless of times before, Leonard and you have little in common, and during your courtship days Leonard was too concerned with trying to engage in coitus with you to ever be honest about what he thought or wanted." Sheldon shrugged, "It's amazing your relationship has not met its inevitable sticky end, though if I had a guess I would say that has something to do with Adelle."

"Lucky guess," Penny said sarcastically, "Everything has something to do with Adelle." They labelled trays in silence for a brief moment before Penny spoke again, "I never thought I'd say this, but all these years with Leonard, I really missed your honesty."

"My honesty?" Sheldon seemed baffled, "Did you not just criticise me for calling you out on your irresponsible expenditure in front of your daughter?"

"Well, I draw the line at that," Penny said firmly, "It's just that – you're right. Leonard never tells me when I'm wrong or being illogical or anything. It's like he's afraid I'll blow up at him."

"In all likelihood, you probably would," Sheldon cut in, "You do have a fearsome temper."

Penny glared at him, "That's not the point," she ground out, "In fact, wanna know a secret?"

"Ooh, secret-keeping!" Sheldon thrilled, sitting up straighter, "You'll be pleased to know I have become a lot better at keeping secrets since I left. I've been looking forward to an opportunity to implement my new skills!"

"Yeah, well," Penny resisted the urge to roll her eyes, "When we were looking for some place to live, we happened to drive by the house we live in now, and I got the strangest impulse – I wanted to know how much I could ask from Leonard that he would actually give me. So I told him I really wanted to live here, just, y'know, as an experiment. I didn't expect him to actually agree." She looked sheepish, "I never did it again. Y'know, with great power comes great responsibility and all that."

The look Sheldon gave her was condescending, and he asked rhetorically, "How do you even live with yourself?"

Her answer was heavier than she intended, and the furrow in his brow when he saw her expression suggested he understood there was more to it than she was letting on, "I don't know."

Around lunchtime, Penny glanced at her watch. Mondays were short days for Adelle, so she would be home soon, and they were nearly finished here. "Hey, Sheldon, I've gotta go and get lunch started for when Adelle gets home, you wanna come over?"

Sheldon was straightening the last of the kitchen utensils. "That depends. What are you planning on making?"

"Spaghetti with little hot dogs?" she offered, smiling.

"Count me in!" He still had that little boy smile that made it impossible to be mad at him.

"So," she said teasingly, though without high hopes for his response, as they got into her car, "I've told you how much I missed you. Did you miss me at all?"

"I did not expect to feel my quality of life would be diminished without the presence of you and the others," Sheldon said, trying for indifference without much success, "But I found that I did, at times, wish for a companion whilst doing my laundry."

"Aww, I'm glad," she said, looking away from the road momentarily to smile at him, though he did not return the expression. Sheldon had never been someone who spoke of his feelings openly or voluntarily, and she'd expected even less than what he had told her. Still, it was nice to know that he had thought of them while he was away. She definitely had thought of him often enough.

"I wasn't expecting us to finish getting things set up so quickly," Sheldon remarked, changing the subject, "my assistant really did a good job making arrangements for my apartment. Remind me to thank her soon."

"Sure," Penny said, frowning slightly, "Your assistant? Who? What's she like?"

"Her name is Celia. She was a good worker," he told her, "Very systematic and organised. I tried to convince her to move to California so she could keep working for me, but for some reason she considered the idea preposterous." He sniffed.

"Well, it's possibly due to the fact she had a life?" Penny offered, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

"Still, it took me a great deal of effort to find an assistant who could keep my desk immaculate and arrange all my appointments with sufficient efficiency," Sheldon seemed upset, "It was rather inconsiderate for her to stay behind in Massachusetts just because she wanted to do her Master's degree at MIT. I tried telling her Caltech was a far better choice for studying Geological and Planetary Sciences, but she wouldn't listen. I suspect her good-for-nothing boyfriend might have had something to do with it."

"A Master's degree…? Just how old was she?" Penny asked, curious.

"She's twenty four this year. She was working temporarily to pay for her education." Penny tried to imagine a young, bright-eyed woman tolerant enough to put up with a boss like Sheldon Cooper to pay for her studies. She couldn't form an image in her mind. "She reminded me of you a little – blonde, attractive, and a certain ability to understand human interactions. Except for the fact that she's completed an Undergraduate degree at one of the most prestigious colleges in the world and graduated with first class honours, of course."

Penny nodded solemnly, "Of course." Sheldon had had a hot blonde assistant? Wait 'til Howard heard about this.

When they pulled into the driveway, Adelle was just unlocking the front door. She looked unbelievably pleased to see Sheldon, who seemed to expect the adoration. Penny tried to imagine how she would have behaved if her father had been best friends with Tom Cruise, and supposed she would hardly have been any better.

They started up a conversation about M-Theory and the geometry of del Pezzo surfaces, whatever they were, as Penny began boiling the pasta. While she'd never expected anything different from a daughter of Leonard's; it was still strange to think that a daughter she'd birthed could converse about Membrane theory with one of the top minds in the field. Perhaps between the three of them, Adelle would be the one in the family who managed to achieve her dreams. Penny was just beginning to tune them out when she heard Adelle ask, "Sheldon, why did you choose to move your research to Massachusetts?"

Penny knew the answer, Sheldon had explained it all clearly to them before he left. He gave the exact same explanation to her daughter now, "I felt that my relationship with your parents and Howard and Raj were holding back my progress with my research. When I turned thirty I worried that my work would never be acknowledged with a Nobel Prize, especially since Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously. Hence, I decided the best course of action would be to start afresh where I had no one to distract me," Sheldon shrugged. "I am now a two-time Nobel laureate. Clearly the method worked."

"But you won your first Nobel prize for work you had already done at Caltech, right?" Adelle asked.

"That is true, but that is nothing compared to the exponential progress I made over my years at MIT," Sheldon pointed out resolutely.

Adelle was silent for a moment, before she said, "Did your moving have anything to do with what my father and Uncle Howard and Uncle Raj did to you during your Arctic expedition?"

Penny nearly dropped the knife she was holding. She spun around. Sheldon had his mouth open to reply, but seemed to think better of it at the last minute, and turned to Penny, his eyes uncertain. "Yes," he said finally, "to a certain extent."

"Adelle, how did you even know about that?" Penny asked, slightly horrified.

"Father told me," she replied calmly. "Mother, the spaghetti is boiling."

Penny sensed that if she was having a conversation with anyone other than Sheldon and her daughter, the rest of the meal would have been filled with awkward silences and weak attempts to initiate conversation. But Sheldon and Adelle seemed rather nonchalant about what had just transpired in the kitchen, and the three of them engaged in a rather entertaining banter about a certain professor Adelle couldn't stand. Between Penny's sarcasm and Sheldon's natural ability to make everyone's intelligence seem much lower than it really was, Adelle's professor was unwittingly receiving quite the lambasting.

Penny decided, though she felt guilty for even thinking it, that the conversation was far more interesting than any dinner conversation she had had with her family in years. Though that might have had something to do with the fact that Adelle was often reading at the dinner table, and recently Leonard had been working late at the lab, doing god knows what. She never breathed a word to anybody, but all those times Sheldon had called Leonard's research hopelessly derivative and unoriginal had stuck with her, and she couldn't help but think sometimes, terrible though the thought was, that he was wasting his time.

After awhile, Adelle excused herself to begin on her homework, and the two of them were left alone in the Kitchen. "Remarkable," Sheldon said, "Meiosis really is amazing, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry?" Penny asked, quizzical.

"Meiosis is the formation of gametes with a genetic makeup unique from its parent cells, and gives rise to genetic variety in a population, through independent assortment and the crossing over of non-sister chromatids of homologous chromosomes at the chiasmata – " he stopped, noting her expression. "It's how you and Leonard somehow managed to produce a child that is both pleasant and insightful."

"Good to know," only Sheldon could make praising one's child sound like an insult at the same time.

"Anyway, Penny, I've given some thought to what you told me this morning, about how you've started to find your relationship with Leonard dull and unfulfilling," Sheldon said calmly, not noticing the sarcasm in her voice.

"I never said that!" Penny said, startled. "Though I suppose you could put it that way." Since when was Sheldon the insightful one? Perhaps he was only good at spotting truths no one else wanted to see.

"Well, perhaps I paraphrased a little, but it seemed to be the gist of your little outburst this morning," Sheldon defended himself mildly, "And you remember what I told you in the car on our way here."

"That you missed me? Yeah, you can count on my not forgetting that any time soon, Shelly," Penny beamed at him obnoxiously. She'd missed this game, where she'd push him to the limits of his patience because she knew he'd always fight back and fighting with Sheldon was always exhilarating, in some twisted way. At the corner of the mind she worried that if she made fun of him too much, he'd never admit to what he had told her again, but instead, the converse happened.

"Yes, that," Sheldon said, his voice surprisingly placid, "I would like to propose, in the light of this, a slight alteration to our relationship paradigm."

"Our relationship what?" Penny's eyebrows shot up.

"Well, it seems that with the exception of several occasions immediately following your initial split with Leonard, our friendship seemed only due to the proximity of our living areas and our mutual friendship with Leonard," Sheldon explained.

"And what – you want us to be friends… outside of Leonard?" Penny asked.

"I suppose you could put it that way," Sheldon shrugged, "Are you opposed to the idea?"

"I'm not! I'm glad, but just – surprised. You never seemed to want me around back when I first started dating Leonard – I mean, you had to try training me! And I'm not smart like you, and I highly doubt you'd be interested in anything in my life…" Penny's incredulity surprised herself more than anyone. Sheldon looked perfectly calm.

"Penny, everything you're saying is completely true, but my proposition still holds."

Penny rolled her eyes, "Don't use that word, sweetie."

"Which word?" Sheldon sounded puzzled.

"Pr – Oh, never mind. I'd love to be uh, friends with you. Better friends, that is, if that's what you're suggesting. Would you just tell me – why you decided to ask?"

Sheldon hesitated for a moment, and Penny tried to remember the last time she saw Sheldon seem unsure of himself. "My Meemaw used to tell me it was important to know who of the people around us like us for who we are," Sheldon said finally, "And out of all my friends, you always seemed to be the one who liked me the most."

Penny stared at him for a moment, shocked green eyes into unabashed blue ones. It was so uncharacteristic of Sheldon to say something like that, something so personal and so feeling. It was true that of the four of them Penny was probably the fondest of Sheldon, but she hardly expected him to have noticed it. When had he realised this? Before he left, or sometime during his seventeen years away?

"I would love to be your friend, Sheldon," was all she said, though the words were hardly adequate for the situation. It felt strangely like a new beginning, as if some sort of time warp had brought an older, more mature version of themselves back into the laundry room years ago, when Sheldon first realised they were friends, and given them the opportunity to start over.

A routine was hard to establish for them, much to Sheldon's chagrin, given that they all worked full time jobs and it was difficult enough finding time for all five of them to eat together. Sheldon started coming over on early Saturday mornings, since Leonard now had the habit of sleeping in on the weekends. Penny liked to get up earlier to get started on housework, and Sheldon helped her, or they watched Doctor Who together. (On DVD, since it no longer played on BBC America on Saturday mornings.)

They didn't keep their meetings from Leonard – how could they, when they met under his roof? But he never seemed bothered by them, or to give it too much thought. Penny and Sheldon had always been friends, after all. In fact, Penny realised, the only time Leonard had seemed even slightly peeved was when Adelle had gotten up early and the three of them spent all morning watching Firefly without him.

Some mornings Penny told Sheldon about her work as a journalist, the weekly book reviews she had to write and the artistes she had to interview, some of them divas, some of them sweet as honey. Sheldon, to her surprise, actually listened – she was used to the idea of a Sheldon who tuned anything that didn't interest him out. Sometimes, he tried to teach her Physics, going through the laws of Newtonian Mechanics with his usual enthusiasm, and she struggled to comprehend what he said, only this time not with the impatience of a young woman who wanted to impress her boyfriend, but the persistence of a mother who wished to understand her daughter.

They still did not have much in common, but now there was seventeen years of anecdotes, fun facts and practical jokes making a revival in the matter of weeks. Penny could not remember being quite so content in a long time.

A/N: Sorry for the double postage! Thanks very much for your reviews so far, they totally make my day :D


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

_Sixteen Years Ago _

It was two a.m. in the morning when Leonard called, and Sheldon startled out of bed, annoyed at having been interrupted in the middle of a REM cycle. A look at the Caller ID and he knew immediately what this was about – if Leonard was calling him in the middle of the night, it meant that the baby was here.

"Greetings, Leonard," he said, shaking himself out of his sleep-induced haze. He calculated that it was about eleven at night in California. "I trust Penny and the baby are well?"

Leonard was chipper. "They're doing brilliantly! The baby just arrived, and Penny is holding her. She's so beautiful – the baby, I mean. Well, Penny too, but the baby more so. Hey!" There was a short scuffle, and Sheldon thought Penny might have hit Leonard on the arm. "Okay, I'm back. She really is, she's got my hair and eyes, but she really looks like Penny did in her baby photos! I always thought babies were just all ugly and wrinkly when they first came out, but she's the most gorgeous baby ever – " At this point, Sheldon was starting to tune him out. He glanced at his alarm clock and yawned loudly, hoping Leonard would get the hint.

"Well anyway, Sheldon, I suppose I should get to the point," Message received! Thank goodness. "Remember that one time my mother came over, and you tried to comfort me by telling me you were my surrogate family?"

Sheldon was not sure where this conversation was heading, but he didn't like it. "I remember everything."

"Well, Penny and I thought we'd ask you to be Adelle's godfather," Sheldon could hear the latent excitement in his best friend's voice, "Whaddaya think?"

Not the worst scenario, but by no means the best scenario either. "My godfather died when I was three; I'm afraid I'm rather unfamiliar with the job scope," Sheldon admitted, "What exactly is my role as godfather?"

"Well, you show up occasionally at important events, send the odd birthday gift or holiday card, and if anything happens to Penny and I, you make sure she gets to college."

"Very well," Sheldon said slowly. It was not like he was planning to reproduce any time soon, and it would be a shame to let his genius die with his generation. While he might not manage to pass on any genetic material, a person's phenotype is greatly influenced by the environment, and perhaps he would be able to help this child develop intellectually – that is, if he ever returned to California. "I will expect a drawn out contract detailing exactly what the 'important events' you speak of are, and the precise number of gifts and cards expected, though."

Leonard sighed, "In your inbox within twenty four hours, Sheldon. I'm sorry, what?" he said, before speaking off the phone to Penny. "Hey, Sheldon, Penny wants to speak to you."

"What up, Moonpie?" Penny sounded tired, but happy. That made one of them.

"I'm fine," he said, "but I will be better when a) I get to go back to sleep; and b) you stop calling me Moonpie."

"Don't get your panties in a bunch, Moonpie," Penny teased.

"I don't wear panties. You do. And you should be very grateful I'm all the way over here, or you would find them hanging on the telephone wire tomorrow morning," Sheldon threatened half-heartedly.

"It's an expression," Sheldon could sense her rolling her eyes, "But that's not the point. Leonard and I wanted to run something by you."

"Something _else_?"

"See we – Okay, I, actually, I got the idea of naming the baby Adelle. Would that be okay with you?" she asked.

"Adelle? After my Meemaw?" It had been over a year since his Meemaw had passed away, and Sheldon still missed her terribly.

"Yeah. What do you think?"

His first reaction was no, definitely not, how could you even consider naming your child after my Meemaw? But Meemaw had always liked Leonard, and seemed to adore Penny, from what Sheldon told her over the phone. At least, she always sent some extra cookies for Leonard when she made him a package, and got a little giggly whenever Sheldon mentioned Penny's latest antics. For some reason that defied all logic, he got the sudden feeling that Meemaw would want his god daughter to be named after her. "I give my consent," he said, before he could ever consider it more carefully.

"That's great! Thanks so much Sheldon. Adelle Katherine Hofstadter," Penny sounded pleased, "I love the sound of that."

"If we're done here, do you mind if I get back to sleep?" Sheldon asked hopefully.

Penny laughed, "Sure thing, Moonpie. Sleep well. Come visit us soon!"

"Goodnight, Penny."

XXX

_Present Day _

It had taken weeks to instil in his life some semblance of the routine he had had in California seventeen years ago. He had not expected things to be exactly the same when he returned, but he was rather disappointed to find out that his friends had failed to withhold their perfect consistency in his absence. They still met for dinner occasionally, but the cuisine was decided spontaneously. They only had HALO nights during the holidays, they didn't play paintball anymore, and worst of all, they only had Comic book nights once or twice a month.

He supposed that much was unavoidable. Howard and Bernadette now had to shuttle between two very demanding mothers and an even more demanding toddler, and Raj was trying to travel back to India more often, despite his lack of fondness for the country, as his parents were aging and he had to spend more time with them. Leonard was spending more time at work, trying his hand at research that was actually original, for once. He was doing what he should have done years ago and asking Sheldon for his opinion, and was making some progress because of it. And, of course, Penny was now gainfully employed and making a decent living. She read a lot now too, actual substantial works of Literature, partly because of her job, and partly because being a mother, she couldn't exactly spend her time dancing or throwing football parties for her brainless friends.

"Well, I could," she said, when Sheldon pointed out having a daughter as self-sufficient as Adelle would hardly prevent her from pursuing an active social life, "But I'm forty, I don't have the energy for that kind of thing anymore. Besides, what would Adelle say? I doubt she'd think very much of… such activities."

It was true. While, from his conversations with his god daughter, he had noticed that Adelle had a healthy respect for her mother's intellect (probably because she'd never met the pre-motherhood, waitressing, psychic-believing Penny), Sheldon doubted she would approve of her mother engaging in alcohol-induced frivolity. It was one of the many topics on which his and his god daughter's opinions converged.

Punctuality being another one of them, now Leonard was rarely late when picking him up for work, due to his daughter's influence. Sheldon glanced at the clock. 6.44, which meant they would be arriving around –

The doorbell rang. Sheldon sprang up to answer it, and Adelle greeted him cheerfully on the other side. "Good morning, Sheldon!"

"Hello, Adelle," he looked around for Leonard, who was nowhere in sight, "Where's your father?"

"Oh, he's not feeling too well, so I'm driving us to the University today," she explained cheerfully, showing him the bunch of keys in her palm.

"You can drive?" he asked, surprised, as he locked the door to his apartment. He had never seen her drive a car before, and had assumed that she, like him, had been too busy with her academic pursuits to learn.

"Yes, my mother made me," she made a face, "I tried to explain that I was otherwise occupied, since my Professor had offered to let me help him with his research on Pulsars, but she wouldn't listen. When I told her that Albert Einstein never learned to drive, she stared at me with this horrified expression and told me that if I didn't learn, she would take all the scientific journals I keep filed in my room out of their ring binders and rearrange them in alphabetical order instead of reverse chronological." Adelle scowled at the memory, "Can't imagine why she reacted that way."

"Beats me," Sheldon said, "I never learned how to drive either."

"That's exactly what I told her! She said, 'Yeah, that's kind of the point.' Wonder why." They got into Leonard's car and fastened their seatbelts.

An old memory of an irate Howard and Penny at the DMV, crystal clear like it had happened yesterday, flashed in his mind, and Sheldon momentarily debated telling Adelle the reason. He decided against it, and made an awkward attempt to change the subject, starting with the first question that came to mind, "Adelle, why did your parents give you the middle name 'Katherine'?" It was not the best conversation starter, and probably would not have worked with anyone else, but Adelle seemed unfazed.

"Oh, my parents differ on the subject. My father insists I was named after Katherine Pryde, from the X-Men, while my mother says it was Katherine Hepburn. I prefer my father's choice, myself," Adelle said thoughtfully, "I even look a little like her."

"You do bear some resemblance to Shadowcat," Sheldon agreed, thinking of the brown-eyed, highly intelligent superhero.

"Uncle Raj even got me a stuffed dragon named Lockheed for my sixth birthday," Adelle laughed, "I think my father was a little disappointed when I turned thirteen and Professor Xavier didn't show up."

"Oh, I hardly think so," Sheldon said expansively. He'd always known Leonard to be slightly sappy, but when he received a photograph of the Hofstadters in Disney Land in the mail a few years back with "Penny and I with the most wonderful little girl in the world" written on the back in Leonard's handwriting, it was pushing it a little. Sheldon doubted Leonard had it in him to be disappointed with his daughter. Possibly due to his unresolved Oedipus complex, Sheldon mused.

"Okay…" Adelle looked quizzical, but didn't push the topic. "You know, I really am glad you're back. Mother and Father both seem happier. Mother especially, she loves it when you come over. I think she's been feeling a little lonely lately."

"Lonely?" Sheldon asked, "Why do you say so?"

Adelle shrugged, "I don't know, mid-life crisis and such. Either way, I find you very preferable to some of the other friends she has." Adelle laughed. "She has this one group of friends that are pathetically imbecilic – Father and I always have a great time using polysyllabic words in their presence when they come over. 'Adelle, could I trouble you to pass me the vial of sodium chloride located on your left, bearings thirty degrees north?' 'No trouble at all, father, would you be so kind as to critique my paper on cosmological rotating black holes in five-dimensional fake supergravity when we have finished ingesting sustenance to provide us with sufficient energy and nutrients for our daily activities?' Mother pretends to be mad, but she finds it hilarious too."

"That certainly sounds like an enjoyable way to spend an evening," Sheldon imagined Penny trying not to laugh as Adelle and Leonard deliberately befuddled her more feeble-minded friends.

"I'll see to it you have a dinner invitation the next time they come over, then," Adelle turned away from the road momentarily to smile at him. She really was very charming.

They played Sheldon's car games (rank the following Scientific breakthroughs in order of the extent they shook the Scientific world) until they reached the university. "So, I'll get you from your office at six?"

"Yep. Thanks for the lift." With anyone else Sheldon would have reminded them to be punctual, but this was Adelle, and he knew for sure there would be a triple knock on his door at exactly six p.m.

There were few people in his life Sheldon had felt comfortable around and formed a connection with, and even fewer were women – other than those in his family, there had only been Beverly Hofstadter, Amy Farrah Fowler, and for reasons no one could explain, Penny. He could see that Adelle was going to be the fourth. Like the first two women on his list, there was something about Adelle that reminded him of him; a sort of kindred spirit, if you will, but unlike Dr. Hofstadter and Amy, Adelle wasn't almost exactly like him, merely a female reincarnation. There were parts of her that reminded him constantly of both Leonard and Penny, and he couldn't decide if that made him like her more or less.

Perhaps the reason why Sheldon was so sure Adelle was going to play an important part in his life was this: when he asked Penny why Adelle had joined college at a relatively old age, given her obvious talent, Penny had rolled her eyes and explained that it was her and Leonard who had stopped Adelle. "We wanted her to have a normal childhood. Y'know, like, try for cheerleading, join the marching band, get a boyfriend, something. But it was never what she wanted, and she got really depressed," Penny explained, "Eventually we realised that a child like Adelle could never be happy going for pep rallies and doing lame high school Science experiments when she could be guessing at the secrets of the Universe."

Adelle had been concerned with the birth of galaxies and the death of stars since she was a small child, and that was something he identified with fully. It reminded him of when he was a young boy in Texas, devouring everything he could find on String Theory, knowing, one day, that he would prove M-theory and win a Nobel Prize for his contributions. A Scientist who found a Unified Theory of Everything would be remembered in history forever, as would one who discovered the truth of the Universe's origins, and that was what Sheldon and Adelle wanted, to be larger than life, to be more than what they had. That was why Sheldon felt he would always, in some obscure way, understand Adelle, and she would somehow always understand him.

He told Penny this, and she'd shaken her head and smiled. "Figures," she said, "that you would be the one to get what Adelle's all about."

"Why do you say so?" he had asked, curious.

"You're both the strangest people I know," she replied, and added under her breath, evidently having forgotten all about his Vulcan hearing, "Leonard isn't going to be pleased about this."

XXX

"I've been thinking," Adelle addressed the car as a whole as they headed to the comic book store before dinner, "that we can't actually call supernatural beings, such as the Elves in Lord of the Rings, immortal. An immortal being would be, by definition, one who lives forever. However, one cannot say a being has lived forever until forever has ended. Forever, by definition as well, does not end. Hence, we cannot ever say that anything is immortal; only that it has not died yet."

"Fascinating," Sheldon said immediately. "It's really just Hume's problem of Induction, but I've never thought of it that way before." Penny had to struggle for a moment to wrap her head around her daughter's logic, but understood fairly quickly. It was funny how things that would have been dismissed as just plain boring if Sheldon had said them actually sounded pretty interesting when coming from Adelle. Perhaps it was just Penny being a proud mother, but even Howard and Bernadette looked vaguely intrigued. That said, it was no secret that almost everything Sheldon did tended to be answered with an eye roll from the rest of them (not including Adelle, of course), reputations tended to stick.

She really was glad for this opportunity to get to know to Sheldon again. He was more mellow than she remembered, more – mature, somehow, more empathetic, yet very much the same in terms of social awkwardness and occasional insensitivity. She'd always loved Sheldon, and this Sheldon was even harder not to love than the one she had known seventeen years ago, most of all because of how nice he was to Adelle. It was hard for a mother not to love someone who made her daughter so happy. Even Leonard, though rather grudgingly, had come to accept his daughter's adoration for her godfather.

Raj and Deepa were already at the comic book store when the rest of them arrived. The comic book store was still exactly where it had been before Sheldon had left, but was now much bigger, and belonged to a younger man named Adam.

Deepa, Bernadette and Penny immediately struck up a conversation while the rest of them browsed. After all these years, none of them really had any interest in comics ("comic _books_," Sheldon corrected), and had learned to put up with their husband's hobbies with the greatest tolerance. Adelle was no big collector of comic books either, but she still found certain series rather interesting, and did enjoy the occasional visit to the comic book store. Penny peered at her daughter over Bernadette's shoulder. She appeared to be deliberating over two hard cover comic book collections when a tall, fairly good-looking Asian boy approached her.

"Hey," he said, rather shyly, though Penny supposed he would appear suave to a sixteen year old girl who had never had a boyfriend, "You need any help?"

Adelle turned to look at him, and did that teenage girl, meet-his-eyes-and-smile-then-glance-at-the-floor thing. Penny's eyes widened. Was she… interested? "Yeah, I was debating between getting the Days of Future Past collection or the House of M one." Adelle said, tucking a stray lock of brown hair behind her ear, "Do you work here?"

"Yeah, I just started today," the boy answered, smiling, "Well, I'm a huge fan of House of M, but I've gotta say they're both great series."

"I know, my father has all the first editions. I just wanted to get a hard cover copy for my own collection and I can only afford one at the moment," Adelle explained, and the boy looked impressed. Deepa and Bernadette had realised something was up as well, and the three women collectively took a step closer to eavesdrop on the teenagers' conversation better.

Even Leonard and Sheldon, who had been discussing the latest New X-Men issue nearby, were momentarily distracted. They observed the scene in front of them with identical expressions, eyebrows raised in suspicion. Penny would have laughed if she was not so intrigued by what was going on with her daughter and this boy.

"Halt," Sheldon said, sidling between the two teenagers smoothly and holding up a hand. "I can see what's going on here."

"I'm sorry?" the boy asked, confused.

"I'm Adelle's Godfather, and this is Adelle's father," Sheldon gestured at Leonard, who stepped up to make his presence known. "Highest level of education?"

"Uh, I'm a Senior in High School," he sounded uncertain, then added hopefully when Sheldon looked unimpressed, "I skipped second grade?"

"Hmm," Leonard considered, "Any AP classes?"

"Uh, Calculus," he furrowed his brow, probably unsure as to why these two men were interrogating him and why he was actually answering them. "Chemistry, and Physics."

"Not bad, but it still doesn't mean he won't be left in the dust when she goes on one of her synchrotron emission spiels," Sheldon muttered to Leonard.

Adelle blushed, "I do not go on synchrotron emission spiels!"

"What's synchrotron emission?" the boy asked nobody in particular. Nobody, of course, paid him any heed.

"Oh you poor boy, I know exactly how you feel," Penny said under her breath. Raj and Howard approached them. "What's going on?" Howard asked, only to be shushed by all three women.

"Okay, Marvel or DC?"

"How am I supposed to choose?"

"Any significant genetic weaknesses in the family?"

"Uh, Asthma? That's genetic, right?"

"It is," Adelle supplied helpfully, "In fact, over 25 genes have since been found to be associated with Asthma in six or more separate populations."

"Seriously? That's interesting – "

"You have a working knowledge of Quantum Mechanics?"

"Yeah, more or less, though I do have trouble understanding Einstein's theory of General – " he stopped short, and stared at Sheldon with undisguised awe, "Wait a minute, are you Dr. Sheldon Cooper? The two-time Nobel Laureate?"

Sheldon smiled that cat-that-ate-the-canary smile he got when he was very pleased with life in general, "Yes. I've heard enough. Is there anything you want to add?" he asked Leonard, who shook his head.

"No. You kids have fun," Leonard smiled at them rather unnervingly, and Penny decided she was going to have to have a talk with her husband if Adelle was seriously going into this whole dating game.

"So, uh," the boy turned back to Adelle, "you're Adelle?" Penny really had to hand it to him for sticking around. If he could suffer through Leonard and Sheldon's interrogation, he probably would be able to cope with the strange dynamics of the Hofstadter's social circle.

"Yeah, Adelle Hofstadter," Adelle said, smiling at him. Previously, Penny had not known her daughter could smile so sweetly. "I didn't quite catch your name?"

"I'm Drew Chang," he told her, "You go to school around here?"

"Oh, um, that," Adelle looked awkward. She wrung her hands, "I'm an undergraduate at Caltech."

"No kidding!" Drew's eyes widened, "But you can't be more than seventeen, eighteen?"

"I'm sixteen."

"Wow. That's really impressive," Drew seemed fascinated, "So you're one of those, child prodigy, genius people?"

"Well – " Adelle tried for modesty, but went with the truth instead, "Yes."

Penny's eyes instinctively met with Sheldon, and they smiled, both remembering that same day – god, was it seriously twenty years ago when they first met? Except Drew, she mused, would probably never string up Adelle's underwear in highly public areas – not unless he wanted Penny to go all Nebraska on him, anyway. And if Adelle ever tried to teach Drew Physics, she would probably never compare him to a Gorilla.

XXX

"Sheldon! Guess what!" Penny was full of enthusiasm when Sheldon arrived at the Hofstadter's house that Saturday.

"Good morning, Penny. Did your marriage with Leonard finally reach its inevitable ending?" Sheldon asked good-naturedly.

Penny stopped short and narrowed her eyes at him. "You think I would be this happy if that happened?"

Sheldon made a humming noise, "Well, given the frequency of your complaints with regards to your marriage over the past few weeks – "

"You know what? Forget it; I'm just going to tell you," Penny interrupted, "You remember Drew? That nice Chinese boy from the Comic Book store? He's coming over this morning!"

"Oh," Sheldon said, "Well, if it was any other teenage girl I'd assume they were going on a date, but since it's Adelle I'm going to guess she offered to explain the Theory of General Relativity to him, am I right?"

"Actually, that's kinda the date," Penny made a face, "They're somehow going to flirt over whiteboards and equations, I suppose."

"Fascinating," Adelle heard her godfather say, as she came down the stairs, "Perhaps Adelle's marriage, unlike yours, and that of her paternal grandparents, might actually have a shot at going the distance."

A/N: Hey everyone! Thanks for all the reviews and faves and story alerts so far - I got a Story Alert from an author I really, really admire from Draco/Ginny fandom, and my mouth just fell open when I saw the email in my inbox. 'tis what I love about the internet. Anyway, tell me what you think! I'm a little worried that I had too much of Adelle in this chapter, but it really is quite fun writing how everyone views her. :)


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

People had, over the years, tried to explain to Sheldon that sometimes, people did things for absolutely no reason. Sure, Sheldon did understand that life needed whimsy, but he sure as hell didn't understand why.

"Sheldon, there isn't a reason why there isn't a reason for some things," Penny had said to him once, exasperated.

"Really? Then is there a reason why there isn't a reason why there isn't a reason – "

"Sweetie? There are at least twenty different reasons why you should shut up right now, and they all end with you in intense pain."

So, at the end of that particular conversation, Sheldon still did not understand why people did things "just so," or, more specifically, why his last assistant, Celia, was calling him up "to, y'know, chat."

"So, Sheldon, the reason why I called you aside, how've you been doing?"

"Just fine, thank you," there was a pause, and Sheldon heard Penny's voice in his head saying, "You see, Sheldon, this is where you ask her about her life!" "Have you been doing satisfactorily yourself?"

"Great! School's been brutal, but fun. The classes I'm taking this term are pretty interesting, and…" One thing Sheldon had learnt about small talk over the years was that if you asked the appropriate questions and made appropriate interjections at appropriate times, you could pretty much get away with not paying attention at all.

"But that's enough about me; tell me more about how you've been doing!" Celia chirped brightly. Just great, if Celia was as self-indulgent as the average person he would have been able to space out for a longer period of time. "I've read your latest paper, it's very fascinating. And actually much easier to understand than your usual work, I must admit." Celia enjoyed reading his papers, but unfortunately, did not have quite the aptitude to fully appreciate his papers and often complained they were far too complex for a non-expert.

"My God-daughter read through it before I published it and she had a lot of questions, so I added in some clarification for her benefit," Sheldon explained, "She's a remarkably bright girl, but young, and somewhat inexperienced."

"Your God-daughter? The little girl in the picture you used to keep framed in your desk?" Celia asked, "Adelle Hofstadter, was it?" Celia's memory was far from eidetic, but she definitely had an eye for detail. It was part of the reason why Sheldon appreciated her so much as an assistant.

"Yes, her name is Adelle. She's only sixteen, but she's already in her second year at Caltech. She hopes to be a Cosmologist in the future. I've been taking an interest in her academic development, her father is really not equipped to help her realise her few potential, which is unfortunate." It was true. Penny had told Sheldon that Adelle often considered contacting her godfather by email or the sort before he returned to California, but was too in awe of him to do so. As much as Sheldon understood her great admiration for him, he couldn't help but think that if he had had a hand in her education a long time ago, she would be far more accomplished.

"Well, you definitely sound proud," Celia laughed. "You sound happy, too. I hadn't thought that was possible."

"What do you mean?" Sheldon asked, furrowing his brow, "I sound perfectly normal."

"Perhaps I should correct myself. You don't sound – completely pissed off. I'm glad," Celia admitted, "I was afraid you weren't on such good terms with your friends back in Pasadena."

"That's preposterous," he said dismissively, "I never sound, as you so choose to put it, pissed off. And I've been on perfectly good terms with my friends since I left."

"Which explains why you didn't visit them for thirteen years, why you guys barely communicated, and why they visited you fewer times than I have fingers over seventeen years," Celia pointed out. If that girl didn't have such a talent for Environmental Geochemistry, she would have made a brilliant lawyer.

"I've explained to you countless times, I felt that my social life was distracting me from making any contributions to theoretical Physics significant enough to win me a Nobel Prize, and my friends chose to respect my wishes," Sheldon spoke with exaggerated patience.

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that," Sheldon could practically sense Celia rolling her eyes on the other end of the line. Seriously, the girl stops working for you and thinks she can start getting sassy. What a state today's youth is in. "So, how's Adelle's mother?"

"Penny?" Sheldon asked, puzzled, "Why do you ask?"

"Yeah, Penny. She's the one you're always talking about, right?" Celia asked. "Like that one time when you were sick and tried to get me to sick that ridiculous children's lullaby to you, and I didn't want to, and you were all, 'but Penny always sings Soft Kitty to me!' And that other time, when you wanted a lift to a museum like, twenty miles out of town and I couldn't take you, you kept saying 'but Penny always gives me a lift when I need one!' You used to say I looked a lot like her too. Hey, is she the one you said you dated once?"

"No, that's Amy Farrah Fowler," Sheldon corrected absent-mindedly, too distracted by what she said to put up a more substantial argument.

"Never heard of her," Celia shrugged. "But you used to have a thing for her, right?"

"_I never had a thing for her_. My friend Leonard had a thing for her. Leonard always had a thing for her," Sheldon said, enunciating very clearly, "And she is married to my friend Leonard."

Celia was silent for a moment, and Sheldon thought for a moment that he had been forceful enough to end the conversation. "Oh," she said finally, "So that's how it is."

XXX

When Adelle was twelve years old, there was only one thing she wanted with all her heart, and that was to go to college. Not go to college in the future, most children wanted that, though they probably didn't think of it as a huge priority when they were twelve. Adelle Hofstadter wanted to go to college Right. Now.

It's not like the other kids in school were mean to her or anything. Her mother still dropped her off at school so all the guys spent more time asking creepily personal questions about her mother than making fun of her for being a nerd. The girls thought she talked a little funny, but she was quiet and occasionally helped them with their homework, and it wasn't like she actually was a threat or anything, so they left her alone too. It just really, really sucked growing up intellectually before all her peers and not to mention, most of her teachers. (Occasionally, something would happen like an English teacher calling Africa a country and she would be horribly tempted to just strangle herself right there and then and just end it all.)

She didn't want the normal life her parents meant for her, but they weren't buckling on the issue. It wasn't like staying in high school (yeah, she was twelve, she was in high school, was that going to be an issue?) any longer than she had to was going to make her any more normal. She didn't even have friends there. Her best friends in the world were her parents, Uncle Raj, Uncle Howard, Aunt Bernadette and Deepa, and the majority of them worked at? Surprise, the university! Evidently, if her parents wanted to save her social life, they'd send her straight to college.

Going to high school did mean that she had a lot of free time. The homework wasn't particularly demanding, and she didn't actually have to study for her classes. Not to mention she didn't exactly participate in a plethora of extra-curricular activities. This really meant more time for her to sit at home in her room pouring over Cosmology Journals, papers on Quantum Mechanics, and anything and everything her Godfather wrote. (In hindsight, it may have been her obsession with her godfather that led her father to decide she needed "more constructive" ways to pass the time that college could offer her.)

More time to sit around and read also meant more time to ask questions, and that was part of the reason why one evening she entered her father's study holding her godfather's autobiography.

"Hey, Delly!" her father beamed. He was probably the only person in the world who could get away with calling her that.

"Hello father," she said, sitting down on one of the chairs opposite the desk. It was as if she was meeting with the Principal for deviant behaviour. "How was work today?"

"Not bad, I made some interesting headway with my research into supersolids and optical lattices," he told her, shrugging. "Perhaps I could show you some of my data, if you're interested."

Adelle wasn't really that into experimental Physics, but hey, Physics was Physics, and anything was interesting when you were forced to complete routine Integration questions as part of a rather optimistically named "Advanced Placement" Calculus class. "I'd love that, father," she said, smiling. "But there was something I wanted to talk to you about, actually."

"Sure, go ahead."

"I was just re-reading Godfather's autobiography, and there was this tiny section about an Arctic Expedition," Adelle said, examining her father's reaction very closely. One summer, her paternal grandmother, who was rather fond of her, had invited her to visit New Jersey for two weeks. Adelle had spent most of her time there locked in her Beverly Hofstadter's extensive library with her grandmother's books and journals on psychiatry. The immediate slump of her father's shoulders and his worried frown did not go unnoticed by her. "There really isn't much there, just that it was unsuccessful, but laid the groundwork for a lot of later major work. It mentions you, Uncle Howard and Uncle Raj went with him."

"We did go," her father nodded, his eyes getting slightly shifty as they often did when he was feeling awkward about something, "But like the book says, the trip was a failure. Your Godfather was very upset. No one really likes to talk about it."

"That's what I thought was strange," Adelle said, trying to keep her voice collected, "That he still seemed upset about it. He talked about it very begrudgingly, I felt. I mean, even if it was a failure, if it eventually led to his winning a Nobel Prize, wouldn't he have gotten over it?"

"Well… Your Godfather has always expected a lot from himself," he explained, wringing his hands, "I'm not surprised he's still sore about it."

Huh. So much for that, then. "Father, did Godfather do anything wrong?" Adelle asked carefully.

"What do you mean?" her father's voice revealed an equal amount of caution.

"Well, we never visit him, and we almost never call, except for during birthdays or holidays. He's never come over either," Adelle pointed out matter-of-factly.

Her father was silent for a very long time, and Adelle let the seconds pass between them. Finally, he said, "Alright. I'd never tell this to any other twelve year old, but you're a very smart girl, and very mature, so I want you to hear this. Your Godfather has always been a very… particular man. He likes things exactly the way he wants it. That makes him a very good researcher, because he's always very determined to get the results he wants. However, when he's under stress, it can become… unpleasant." He paused.

"I understand," Adelle nodded, thinking her father was checking if she was paying attention.

"When we went on the Arctic expedition with him, he was very upset at our initial unsuccessful data, and that made him rather difficult to live with. Throwing in the fact that we were cold, and alone, and we were at the freaking North pole…" Leonard trailed off, noticing his daughter was staring at him, "We fabricated successful results using an electric can opener," he finished finally.

Adelle gasped at him, "But that's terrible! I can't – did he ever forgive you?" It was a stupid question, evidently, if he had agreed to be his daughter's godfather, he must have forgiven his best friend to a certain extent.

"He did. But it was difficult," her father sighed. "That's why we don't visit. Sheldon left because he realised he was getting older, and if he wanted a Nobel Prize, he had to work twice as hard as before. Nobel prizes aren't awarded posthumously, you see. He decided that his social life was holding him back, so once a job opportunity at MIT opened up, he upped and left. We felt really guilty about what happened – I still do. I couldn't stop him from winning his Nobel Prize again."

It was always a strange feeling, for a child to realise she was smarter than her parents, yet it was nothing compared to realising that her parents, and the adults she'd grown to think of as her best friends, were not perfect, or completely moral people, and that they had made mistakes in the past. But her father had told her what happened – he could have lied, or deflected, but he felt guilty enough about what he did to want her to learn from it. She always thought of him differently, from then on, though she could never quite say in what way, but, for a long time, she never stopped thinking of him as a good person.

XXX

Sheldon had barely gotten off the phone with Celia for five minutes when he received a text from Adelle: Hey Sheldon, need a place to crash. Mind if I come over?

He'd been looking forward to a perfectly good Sunday afternoon on his own, possibly with the second re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica, but Adelle made for a pretty good television-watching companion. That and he felt she should be rewarded for being one of the few teenagers in America who still texted in full sentences and without annoying abbreviations. His reply: Request for sanctuary accepted.

She arrived less than ten minutes later, a book under her arm. She wasn't holding any keys and her cheeks were slightly flushed, so Sheldon deduced that she had walked over. "Thanks for letting me come over at such a short noticed," Adelle said, her voice somehow resigned, "My parents are fighting."

Sheldon winced at the memory, "Perfectly understandable, I remember their fights. It was like Mt. Vesuvius meeting Hurricane Katrina. I could never stand the screaming."

Adelle's eyes widened in shock, "My parents used to scream at each other?" she sounded incredulous. "They just get into petty squabbles about the stupidest things until it reaches a point where they realise they can't continue the argument without insulting the other party, and mother marches off to the bedroom and father locks himself in the study. Alternatively, one of them leaves the house until dinner, whereupon they ignore each other until the next morning. I hate being in the house when that happens."

"I find that hard to believe, as in the past the smallest things could trigger a high decibel shouting match between your parents," Sheldon told Adelle, as she seated herself next to his spot on his new couch, as her mother used to.

Adelle snorted, "I wish they would just yell at each other already. All this passive-aggressive behaviour is just embarrassingly childish." She sighed, and then said, "I hope I'm not bothering you. I brought a book, in case you were planning on working or something." Adelle looked at the cover of the book she was carrying, and immediately made a face. "Oh. Plato's The Republic. I knew I shouldn't have just grabbed the first book I saw."

"Plato's The Republic? I didn't know you were interested in Philosophy," Sheldon said, as he selected the box-set of Battlestar from his neatly arranged collection. "I was going to watch the latest re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica. You're welcome to join me."

"I'd love to. I'm not into Philosophy, though. Father's been on a Philosophy kick for the past year or so. I, on the other hand, think it's rather impractical," Adelle told him, flipping through the book. "It must be from a second-hand book store, or something. It's got a name written in the front. Sam Drake... sounds slightly familiar."

Sheldon didn't even have to stop to think, "Professor Samantha J. Drake, of the Humanities department. She teaches Philosophy and Ethics."

"Hmm. He must have got it during the second-hand book fair the University had last year, then," Adelle said, placing the book on Sheldon's coffee table. "Alright, let's watch the Cylons and humans blow each other up!"

XXX

At dinner time, Adelle convinced Sheldon to come for dinner with them, "Please? They might still be fighting, and my mom won't let me take my food to my room." Sheldon reluctantly agreed, recalling the "Extends help and support in any way possible in times of trouble" clause in his Godfather agreement.

They found Penny seated at the dinner table, her head in her hands. "Mother?" Adelle asked cautiously. "I hope you got my note."

"Yes, I did. Your father's not back yet."

"Father left?" Adelle frowned, before saying, "I brought Sheldon home for dinner. Are you feeling alright?"

Penny looked up, and Sheldon saw that her eyes were slightly red. "I'm fine, just a little migraine, that's all." She suddenly shook her head, startled. "Wait – dinner? Is it six already?"

"Quarter past," Adelle told her, "I'll make dinner. Is leftovers alright with you?" She asked Sheldon, who looked pained, but nodded.

"No, sweetie, you don't have to…" Penny got up, trying to steady herself and grabbing hold of the table for leverage.

"It's fine, mother. I'll just cook some rice and get some leftover meat out of the freezer," Adelle reassured her mother, sitting her back down in the chair. "You just stay here with Sheldon."

Adelle busied herself washing the rice, and Sheldon patted Penny awkwardly on the shoulder. "There, there," he said, pulling out a chair and sitting beside her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Penny forced a smile. "Have you gotten better at comforting people?"

"Not particularly, but given the amount of practice I've had over the past few months I've gained remarkable aptitude at listening to you complain about your marriage," Sheldon pointed out.

"Point." Penny actually smirked. "It's just that – it was about something so stupid this time. Well, it's stupid every single time, but I just don't know why we can't seem to stop. Freakin' hell, this time it was about him trying to teach Adelle Klingon, for god's sake. I made some stupid joke telling him not to ruin it now she actually had a boyfriend, and then everything just escalated. It's so stupid."

Sheldon chuckled, and regretted it once Penny directed her death glare at him. "Sorry. I should not have laughed. But it was rather funny."

"That's the point. It's so trivial, I don't know why," Penny massaged her temple with her fingertips. "I don't know how much more of this I can stand."

Sheldon's heart leapt (he'd always hated that expression, how could a heart leap?) for the strangest reason, and he chalked it up to triumph. He had been right from the start. Penny had often griped about her relationship with Leonard, but never before today had she alluded to wanting it to end. He'd known it all along, but there was nothing like confirmation. He opened his mouth to reply, but there was the sound of a key in the keyhole, and the door opened.

"Hey, Sheldon," Leonard sounded surprised, and was obviously faking a casual tone of voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Adelle invited me over for dinner," Sheldon told him, "Where've you been?"

"Stopped by the comic book store," Leonard placed his keys back in the bowl, refusing to meet Sheldon or Penny's eyes.

"You didn't buy anything?" Adelle asked, emerging from the kitchen, a large steaming bowl of rice in her hands.

"Couldn't find anything I wanted," Leonard said rather unconvincingly. Even Sheldon could tell something was up, but from the look in the Hofstadter's faces, he could tell it was not something he should bring up.

XXX

After dinner, Leonard drove Sheldon home, and Adelle quickly excused herself to her room, claiming she had homework to finish. Everyone knew that Adelle always finished all her homework by Saturday night, but no one tried to stop her.

She picked up her phone, and dialled a number she now knew by heart. He picked up after three rings. "Hey, Drew?"

"Adelle! I just got off my shift, was about to call you."

"Your shift?"

"Yeah, I work on Sundays, didn't I tell you?" He had. It was part of the reason why she'd escaped to Sheldon's house instead.

"Hey, this may sound strange, but did you see my father at the comic book store today?"

"Your father? Dr. Hofstadter? No, I didn't see him. Why?"

"No reason," she said casually, "Do you want to come over after school tomorrow? My Godfather lent me one of his old first edition books on M-Theory today."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Adelle faced her hypothesis with the calm and common sense uncharacteristic of the average sixteen year old when faced with such a situation. This was, likely, because she was not the average sixteen year old, but that wasn't the point.

She composed an email to her paternal grandmother, beginning with the usual pleasantries before dissolving into a long dissertation describing the empirical evidence she had gathered over the past couple of months. It ended with a short paragraph: As a follow up to recently concluded research that my parents have long since fallen out of love, I would like to propose a new hypothesis: that my father is cheating on my mother.

Most research papers ended with a section on Further Research, but she hit send anyway. The response was quick, despite the time difference: Your hypothesis, based on the data you have gathered, sounds logical. However, as your email ends there, I can only assume you are unsure with how to proceed. To this I can only refer you to the Scientific Method, which, as I understand, has been a prominent feature of your childhood. If you wish to prove your hypothesis, your next step should be logical. Such research has been conducted by many a woman and a man throughout the course of history, and it should not be difficult to find a Methodology you wish to apply. If, however, you agree with the common adage that "ignorance is bliss" and choose to wait for the inevitable to, as today's urban youth puts it, "bite you in the ass," it is perfectly understandable as well. I have been often told, though I do not agree completely, that self-delusion is the key to happiness.

She told Drew of her hypothesis the next day, when they met up after school. "I just can't believe my father would do something like that. It just isn't him, he's a good person. Maybe my grandmother was right; maybe I shouldn't do anything about it. I'm not sure I could stand knowing," she said rather gloomily, sighing.

"Don't sigh like that, it makes you sound like Eeyore," Drew tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

"I like Eeyore," Adelle said, "I think he's cute."

"So do I," Drew confessed, before switching back on topic, "Adelle, do you think your mother might have guessed as well?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, she is married to the guy, she must notice this sort of thing," Drew pointed out.

"I don't know. Maybe she's trying to ignore it," Adelle bit her lip, "Drew, do you think this is my fault?"

"That your father is cheating? Why would it have anything to do with you?" Drew asked, concerned.

"It's just that my parents fell out of love ages ago. I can't remember a time when I thought they were in love, not even that post-romance, Sunday morning coffee and newspapers companionate love. And I always thought… if not for me, they could've gotten divorced. Would've, even. I mean, they've always been obsessed with giving me a normal life. If I hadn't been born, my father would not have had to cheat on my mother."

Drew looked at his girlfriend. If he was honest with himself, he would admit that part of the reason he had had the courage to speak to her at the comic book store was because he had thought Shadowcat was standing in the Marvel section of the shop, and he would be an idiot not to speak to her. He'd thought it was hilarious when she told him she had been named for Katherine Pryde, because the only thing better than being with a comic-book fantasy was being with the real life version. She was probably the prettiest girl he knew, and definitely the smartest. It was easy to forget that she was only sixteen, sometimes. But looking at her, now, worrying about her role in the dissolution of her parent's marriage, she was one hundred percent sixteen year old girl, and zero percent genius future cosmologist.

Any other girl, he would have given some textbook reassurances, words that didn't mean anything. But this was Adelle, and that would hardly suffice. "Your parents did what they did because they love you," he told her gently, "You're hardly to blame for that."

XXX

After the happenings of last Sunday, where Sheldon's god-fatherly duties and general concern for his friends caused him to suffer through an unbearably awkward meal, he was repaid with a relatively uneventful week. When he visited Penny on Saturday, she seemed in good spirits, though slightly worried for her daughter.

"Listen, Sheldon, I know Adelle spends a lot of time with you, and I was wondering, did she mention anything about Drew?" Sheldon had since gotten used to Penny needlessly worrying over Adelle, but this picture of her full of maternal concern still contrasted sharply with the young, carefree woman he had known seventeen years ago.

"Her boyfriend? She mentions him from time to time, he has an interest in Quantum Physics, though I hear he is aiming to be a Pharmaceutical Chemist," Sheldon sniffed disapprovingly. "Which is completely preposterous, Earnest Rutherford, despite winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, felt that it was a lesser science than Physics, a view I wholeheartedly agree with -"

"Yeah, well, I don't really care about what he's going to do in the future, it's just that," Penny sighed, "Well, they've been going out for a while now, and I was wondering if they were doing anything. Y'know…"

"You're wondering if they're engaging in coitus?" Sheldon deduced.

"Well. Not quite coitus, but close enough, congratulations," Penny said dryly. "I don't know how to ask her. I mean, when she was eight, I tried to give her The Talk but she just calmly informed me that she was well aware of the mechanisms behind Mammalian reproduction and knew how the different methods of contraception worked." Penny shuddered. "And she really did know – I didn't know exactly how an IUD worked before she informed me."

"Well, I suppose you have your answer there, then," Sheldon said, as if it was completely obvious.

"Excuse me…?"

Sheldon sighed, "Adelle is a very smart girl, Penny. She understands the risks and implications of a physical relationship, and she knows how to deal with them. I hardly doubt you need to worry on that account."

"I know, but –she's just a little girl. She went to high school when she was twelve, she doesn't know anything about this sort of thing. What if he, y'know, he's wrong for - " she broke of abruptly, half a life time of failed relationships and boyfriends who turned out to be complete jackasses flashing before her eyes.

"Penny, Penny, Penny," Sheldon said, in a voice that demanded to be listened to. She looked up and met his eyes. "If it is how Drew will treat Adelle you are worried about, perhaps you should speak with him. That said, given my preliminary observations, he seems to be of sturdy character. But if it is with how Adelle will conduct herself, your worries are completely unfounded."

Penny looked at him until she felt the nausea in her subside. There was something in his blue eyes that was eminently calming. Any normal person would have been disconcerted at Penny's silence, but Sheldon let her take her time until she spoke. "You're right," she said slowly, "I've got to trust her."

"Of course I'm right," Sheldon sounded offended that she would think otherwise. Then he said, completely without planning to, and with a slight viciousness that he hoped was not apparent in his voice, "What does Leonard have to say about this?"

Penny snorted, obviously not noting any change in his tone, "Leonard? He hadn't considered it at all. He sounded disturbed when I mentioned it, and then he went 'Adelle is too young to have sex' and shut up about that. I don't think he can handle Adelle growing up so fast – and she's already growing up twice as fast as any other girl."

XXX

"Morning, Mom," Adelle descended from the steps, a book, as always, under her arm. "Hey Sheldon!" she chirped, when she saw her beloved godfather.

Penny smiled at the sight. It was still so strange seeing Adelle so completely at ease with someone. It was getting hard to believe that this sixteen year old had once locked herself up in her bedroom for hours on end, coming out only for school and meals. Now she was talking more, smiling, even, and she had a boyfriend. Adelle was even beginning to ask her mother for ideas on how to wear her hair, though she refused on all accounts to spend even fifteen minutes shopping for clothes, or getting a crash course in make-up application. All this because Sheldon had came back. Penny could still remember the first moment that started off Adelle's slow change, sparked off her daughter's gradual return to her: the brightening of Adelle's eyes when she said, "My godfather's – Dr. Sheldon Cooper – he's moving back here?"

"Are you going to see Drew today?" Penny asked, presenting her daughter with a plate of scrambled eggs.

"Nope, he's got finals around the corner, so his mother has him under house arrest," Adelle explained. "He should be fine, I went through the syllabus with him, and found him some easier questions from my college textbooks."

"It's baffling isn't it, the notion of having to study for high school examinations?" Sheldon asked, posing his question both to Adelle and the world at large. Penny shook her head.

Adelle nodded sagely. "It is," she agreed.

Their breakfast conversation suddenly dissolved into Adelle and Sheldon attempting to teach Penny about Electric Fields and what not: an Electric Field is a region of space where a charged object experiences a force, Penny was wondering aloud why Scientists had to put simple concepts into cumbersome definitions when Leonard surprised everyone by coming down the stairs.

Sheldon, Penny and Adelle turned to look at the Kitchen clock simultaneously. "Hello, father," Adelle said, "Why are you up at ten thirty on a Saturday morning?"

"Visiting Professor from Switzerland," Leonard explained, "He came over for a conference at Arcadia on Science Education, I contacted him and managed to persuade him to take a look at my research work before he leaves tomorrow."

"Professor Acklin? He gave us a lecture on Quantum Chromodynamics yesterday," Adelle said, impressed, "He was very knowledgeable."

"_Your_ research managed to attract _his_ attention?" Sheldon asked, not bothering, as usual, to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

"As a matter of fact, it did! My work on, um, I – " Leonard looked at his watch. "I gotta go. See you guys at dinner!"

He dashed out of the house. "What's gotten into him?" Sheldon asked.

"I don't know," Adelle said, in a tone of voice that suggested the contrary.

XXX

After lunch Penny apologetically shooed Sheldon out of the house. "Sorry, Sheldon, but these interview questions were due like yesterday and my editor is seriously on my case about them," she told him.

"That's alright, it would be impolite for me to distract you since you're actually doing honest work," Sheldon said, "Besides, I need to go to the electronics store. My DVD burner has been experiencing some technical difficulty."

"I could drive you, if you like," Adelle offered, "I didn't get much homework this weekend."

Unlike most teenage girls, Adelle rarely voluntarily went out of the house, so Penny wasn't about to disagree. Besides, Sheldon enjoyed Adelle's company, they played one of his car games on the way (how various science fiction films or television series would have ended if one small factor was changed) and she helped him pick out a new DVD burner. They even helped some of Pasadena's proletariat choose the correct electronic device for their needs, until Adelle reminded Sheldon that she should be home soon.

"We ought to pick up some ice-cream for my mother before we leave," Adelle told Sheldon, "she's been a little upset recently, and she always used to say that ice-cream is the best remedy for feminine emotional crises."

"Your mother actually said that?" Sheldon asked, furrowing his brow as he remembered sharing with Penny his findings from reading the comic strip Cathy with almost those exact words.

"She prefers Belgian chocolate with cookie," Adelle informed him. _The exact same flavour_, he remembered.

There was only one Sheldon-approved ice-cream shop in the shopping mall, and it was a small, rather cosy café. He did not appreciate the selection of pastries they had there (they sold bear claws, for god's sake), but he had to admit the ice-cream was delicious, home made with good, fresh ingredients and served in a satisfactorily sanitary manner.

"Sheldon?" Adelle asked hesitantly, as they walked towards the café, "recently, I've made several observations that have given rise to a certain hypothesis, and I was wondering if I could seek your opinion on the best way to begin my experimentation."

"Experimentation? Fill me in on your background research," Sheldon said, curiosity piqued.

"Well, past research I've done on the subject has confirmed that – " Adelle stopped short in front of the café, staring into the window with incredulity.

"Is there a reason why we aren't moving?" Sheldon asked, looking into the café window as well. "Ah."

"Well." Adelle said, and when Sheldon looked at her it was evident she was struggling to keep calm. "It would appear that accidental findings have rendered future experimentation needless."

"This was the topic with which you had interest in researching?" Sheldon asked, gesturing toward the window.

"Yes. I had my suspicions," Adelle's voice was still completely neutral. "Just so we're completely clear, and I'm not misinterpreting the results. That is my father, correct?"

"Correct."

"And he appears to be engaging in osculation with a woman who is not my mother."

"It appears to be so."

"Ah," Adelle said, and she walked over to the café door and flung it open before Sheldon could stop her.

XXX

Adelle had read, countless times before, of Scientists making accidental discoveries: Alexander Fleming with Penicillin, Penzias and Wilson with Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, so on and so forth. They were supposed to be intriguing, exciting, and full of promise. They weren't supposed to hurt like this.

Hurt was not a feeling Adelle was used to. She would be the first to admit she wasn't exactly someone who experienced a wide range of emotions, but that was expected from a girl who locked herself in her bedroom with Scientific Journals 24/7. There was excitement at a latest scientific discovery, frustration at difficult homework, joy at spending time with her godfather and her family and friends, but not this. She was certain nothing could have prepared her for this. She'd considered the possibility countless times over the past week, but there was nothing like knowing for certain.

She wondered absently, as she strode to the table where her father was sitting, if this was what Sheldon had felt when he found out that his friends had faked his results during the Arctic Expedition.

"Good day, Father," she said, as she finally reached the table. Her father and the woman (of medium build, probably in her late thirties, blonde, not unattractive but nothing compared to her mother) sprung apart. "I presume the meeting with Professor Acklin went well?"

There were a million of things her father could have said, none of which could have justified what he was doing, but when he said, "Adelle, I can explain," she knew that her hypothesis had been proven true.

She roughly shoved whatever she was feeling to the back of her mind, and let her analytical, scientific side take over. Her father knew that Sheldon did not appreciate the pastries here, but he did not know that she herself had introduced Sheldon to the spectacular ice-cream, hence the location. Sheldon tended to stay at the Hofstadter's house until 3 p.m., hence the time. Her father was wearing his wedding ring, so the woman in question knew that he was having an affair.

Adelle clenched her fists instinctively, and she felt Sheldon catch up and stand next to her, looking from his best friend to the strange woman with uncharacteristic silence.

She forced a smile, and extended her hand to the woman. "My name is Adelle. I'm Dr. Hofstadter's daughter."

The woman looked awkward, but returned the smile, "Professor Samantha Drake."

"I've heard of you," Adelle remembered, "You owned that book on Plato my father had." The name written inside had been hers, and her father had had that book for about a year. Adelle had the sudden urge to throw up.

"Adelle. Adelle, are you alright?" Sheldon was asking, but she could barely hear him. She had sworn to herself she would not make a scene but she could not stop the sixteen year old girl in her who turned on her heel and ran out of the café.

XXX

Sheldon found her sitting in the driver's seat of her mother's car, her head on the steering wheel. "Adelle?" he asked tentatively. Crying girls were not something he had to deal with regularly since he had left Pasadena, and he had not gotten much better at dealing with them.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice muffled. She didn't lift her head from the steering wheel.

"You seem emotionally imbalanced. Would you like me to drive us home?" he said begrudgingly. In all honesty he had not driven since he had to drive her mother to the hospital when she dislocated her shoulder, and he did not appreciate it any more right now than he had had back then, but it seemed like an emergency.

"Could you?" Adelle asked, looking up momentarily. Her eyes were red, but she did not appear to be crying. "I'd appreciate that."

Sheldon was glad the shopping mall was only a few minutes' drive to the Hofstadters' residence, because he had no idea what to say to a sixteen year old girl who had just found her father was having an affair. He wondered if there was any car game he could think of that would make her feel better, but somehow doubted it. The only thing he knew supposedly made emotional girls less upset was ice cream, and well… look how that turned out.

"For what it's worth," Sheldon started, as they pulled into the driveway of the Hofstadters' house, and then stopped short, unable to think of anything comforting to say. Finally, he went with, "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"I'm sorry too," Adelle said humourlessly. She looked into the passenger side mirror, and her eyes widened. Leonard's car had stopped behind them. Adelle frantically got out of the car and ran to the door, knocking it frantically. Sheldon pulled the keys from the ignition and followed her.

"Adelle? Sweetie, what's wrong?" Penny asked, as she opened the door. Adelle pushed pass her mother blindly and made for the stairs. "Sheldon?"

Leonard was close behind them, and Sheldon had the sudden feeling he was in one of his favourite Science Fiction movies, when the hero and the heroine were racing to escape the grasp of the fearsome monster. Except in this case, the fearsome monster was his best friend, only recently found to be a Cylon, a robot wrapped in human flesh and a traitor to all of humanity.

Sheldon didn't know anything about how to deal with such situations but he knew in this case, the absolute last thing Adelle needed was to speak to her father. He followed her up the stairs, his long legs taking two steps at a time.

Leonard had also pushed past Penny. "God, Sheldon, let me talk to her, please," he was saying.

Sheldon spun around, nearly losing his balance from the momentum. "Talk. To. Your. Wife," he managed to grind out, and Leonard stopped at the force behind his words.

"Leonard?" Penny asked from the bottom of the stairs, her voice increasing in pitch from alarm, "Would you like to explain to me why our daughter, who has not cried since she was a toddler, is now sobbing like a three year old?"

Leonard hesitated for a second, looking from the closed door of his daughter's room, where his best friend and her godfather was now comforting her (if Sheldon knew how to comfort someone), to his wife. "Yeah, just a minute," he said, and made for Adelle's room.

XXX

"Hey," Sheldon said, as he approached the sixteen year old girl curled up on the bed. He sat down awkwardly next to her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"About what? My father having an extra-marital affair?" In the months he had known Adelle, she had been about as prone to emotional outbursts as he was, and it was truly strange to see her cry openly. He patted her on the shoulder.

"There, there," he said. "Sheldon's here." What was it that such situations usually called for? Empathy? "Well, I do know what you're going through. When we got back from the Arctic Expedition – "

Adelle sat up abruptly, making Sheldon jump. "You see, that's the point! When I was younger, my father told me that story. He said it was so I could learn from it, so I wouldn't do something like that. I thought that made him a good person. I couldn't believe he would ever – I didn't think he could do something like that again."

She stopped, and Sheldon thought for a moment it was his turn to talk. He opened his mouth to speak, but Adelle continued, "Maybe she should have married you instead. You barely look at another woman."

XXX

_Maybe she should have married you instead_. Behind Adelle's door, Leonard jerked his head back as if he had been physically slapped. He stepped away from the door.

Alright, maybe he deserved that. He had suspected as much over the years, but hearing it from his daughter's mouth still stung. He had not been good enough for his mother, and now, he was not good enough for his own daughter. If he had not been before, he had sealed his own fate by cheating on her mother. Sheldon, for all his social inadequacies and his idiosyncrasies, was their choice. And he was the one who had won two Nobel prizes, and could actually identify with Adelle. Perhaps he was the smarter choice.

He walked down the stairs, to where Penny was waiting for an explanation.

XXX

Penny had half-known when Adelle had burst into the house with that look on her face, Sheldon and Leonard close behind her. She thought maybe that she had half-known for ages now, and had just been ignoring it, chalking it up to over-suspicion and paranoia. Leonard was a good guy. Good guys, by definition, do not cheat. It was part of the reason she'd married him, really.

Then he came down the staircase wearing an expression she had seem countless of times before, and she had known. Good god, she _knew_. Leonard reached the bottom of the stairs, and he opened his mouth.

She thought she was prepared for anything he could say ("I want a divorce," "There's someone else," "This isn't working out, I can't do this anymore") but when he said, "I'm in love with someone else," she just wanted to throw something at him. She hated him, in that instant, hated him for making her that girl all over again, that stupid blonde guys thought they could treat as arm-candy while they screwed a whole harem of girls behind her back. She hated him for letting Adelle know what a complete idiot her mother was – God knew what Adelle had seen that had made her cry like that, she was never going to forgive him for making her daughter cry, goddamnit.

She hated him for using the word "love" because just when she'd started to get used to the idea that romantic love never really lasts, that she would never really ever find The One, that it was too late for her and she could just make do and be happy with her husband she didn't love anymore and her daughter she adored and her job and Sheldon, her good-for-nothing husband had gone out and found love, love, that stupid thing she'd wanted since she was Adelle's age and still believed in fairytales.

She remembered Leonard's mother's words from well over a decade ago, "Well, initially I felt something akin to grief, and perhaps anger, but that's the natural reaction of the limbic system to being betrayed by a loathsome son of a bitch." Yeah, that makes two of us, Bev. She nearly laughed.

Penny wondered if she should ask who the woman was, how long it had been going on, but she found she didn't care. There was only one thing that could be said right now, and she said it with as much self-control as she could possibly muster, "Get the hell out of my house. And don't ever come near me or my daughter ever again."

She thought Leonard would protest against that, he'd loved Adelle even after he'd stopped loving her, but he didn't say anything. Good, maybe the bastard knew his place. If she had her way he'd never see her daughter ever again.

"I'm sorry," he said finally, and turned to leave. She watched him go and she felt for a moment like she was in three places at once, trying to convince Sheldon not to leave as he packed for Massachusetts an eternity ago, watching Adelle's face light up when she received her acceptance letter from Caltech, and letting her husband out of the door, into the arms of another woman, a woman whom he loved.

"Wait," she called after him, before she could think better of it, and he stopped short just as he was about to step outside. The light from the mid-afternoon sun streamed into their house. "What was it like, falling in love with her?" she asked him, her voice low and her eyes meeting his steadily.

Leonard looked uncertain, unsure of how to answer. "It was like seeing the sun," he said quietly, "After a lifetime of watching shadows on a cave wall."

Well, he had always been a sap. She sneered at him. "Get out." The door closed resolutely behind him.

XXX

Sheldon blinked at his god daughter. Whatever she just said, it did not compute. _I've looked at many women_, he wanted to protest_. It's rather unavoidable. For example, I'm looking at your right now_.

"I'm sorry I'm unloading all this on you," Adelle said, hugging her knees to her chest. "I'm just – I feel sick. Nauseated."

Sick? Sick he knew how to deal with. "If you like, I could sing you Soft Kitty," he offered. "That's the song my mother used to sing to me when I was feeling unwell."

Adelle smiled through her tears. "I know, my mother used to sing it to me as well. I'd like that, I think."

"Perhaps you should get some sleep too. Sleep is an important part of the restorative process when one is grieving," Sheldon suggested.

"I am really tired," Adelle agreed. She got off the bed, as Sheldon helped her peel off the covers, and tucked her in as if he really was her father.

"Hey, Sheldon? Want to know a secret?" she asked, half-asleep, when he was done singing to her.

"I accept the covenant of secret keeping," he said solemnly.

"My mother once told me that part of the reason why she made my middle name Katherine was because of Soft Kitty."

Oh. Penny had had the idea of naming Adelle after his grandmother, and she had based her middle name off Soft Kitty as well?

"Take care of my mother, okay?" Adelle said softly, before drifting off.

A/N: Firstly, for the uninformed, osculation is the scientific term for what most people refer to as 'kissing' :D

Also, I'm really sorry for not replying comments on the last chapter - a lot of you had guessed what was going to happen, hence I thought it would be best if I just got this chapter up as soon as possible. And this has definitely been the hardest chapter to write so far. Anyhow, I hope you all enjoyed it! :) Let me just get it out there that I really do not condone infidelity, and I kept trying to think of ways to this story could play out without Leonard cheating (I even considered Leonard dying, seriously) but I eventually decided to stick with the storyline I originally had in mind.

Anyhow, I suppose most of you can guess the significance of the title now! :D

On another note, just thought I'd put it out there - would any of you be interested in reading a scene or two of what happened during the seventeen years Sheldon was away? I had an idea for few drabbles and I was thinking of writing them. If you have any idea of what you'd like to see, feel free to suggest it too! I'll admit I included that part about Adelle emailing Beverly at the start because a reviewer suggested we see them interact :) (Thanks very much for the idea, by the way!)


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Five

_Let us examine the chain of causality that has brought you to this point_, Sheldon thought, as he shut the door to Adelle's room as quietly as he could. _First, you leave Pasadena for Massachusetts in an attempt to get rid of the distractions standing in the way of winning a Nobel Prize. You stay in Massachusetts for seventeen years and win two Nobel Prizes on your own. You return to Pasadena, become best friends with your best friend's wife, and begin mentoring your god daughter. Then, you find out that your best friend has been cheating on your other best friend, and you now have to find some way to comfort her_.

Sheldon was not good at comforting people. He tried thinking of some helpful German word that might alleviate Penny's distress. The best he could come up with was _Schadenfreude_, and he didn't think Penny would find much happiness in the distress of others at this present moment. Leonard had always been good at comforting people, but again, that route obviously did not apply in this situation. His last assistant had also been pretty accomplished in the field – Celia had always been a bit of a spitfire, but she had managed to comfort a lab technician whose wife had cheated on him with his best man on the day of their wedding. Sheldon, to this day, was still unsure of exactly how Celia had accomplished that.

Sheldon wondered if he could sneak a call to Celia to ask for advice, but he was almost certain Penny could hear him from downstairs, and who knew what she was up to down there anyway. He quickened his pace. If Penny was as emotionally unbalanced as she had been whenever she found out she had been cheated on seventeen years ago, the kitchen was probably a disaster zone right now.

When he descended the stairs, he found Penny sitting at the dinner table, her head in her hands. He couldn't tell if she was crying or not, but the situation seemed volatile. "Penny?"

Penny looked up. She seemed tired and worn. Sheldon had always thought the years had been kind to her, and that Penny looked like she was in her early-thirties, at the most, but at this instant, she looked every inch of her forty one years. "Sheldon," she said, smiling weakly at him.

"Adelle decided to get some sleep," Sheldon told her, gesturing vaguely up the stairs. "I sang Soft Kitty to her. She should be fine for the time being."

"But Softy Kitty's only for when she's sick," Penny reminded him softly. There was something delicate in her voice that Sheldon thought would break any moment.

"She told me she felt nauseated," Sheldon explained, "Would you like to take a nap as well? Sleep is an important part of the restorative process when one is grieving."

"Sleep. That sounds good," Penny said, standing up and stretching slightly, "I mean, it can't get much worse than this, can it? So, are you going to get me into bed, Sheldon?" She laughed at the memory, and Sheldon, though also recalling the same incident, stared at her, bewildered. "Lord, that was so many years ago. The first time I was dating Leonard. I shoulda stayed broken up with him."

They climbed the stairs together, liked they used to back in the day, only Sheldon was still staring at Penny like she was a lab accident waiting to happen. She was obviously affected, but the lack of violent sobs or attempts to clobber Leonard to death worried was seriously out of character for someone of her temperament. Which led him to one conclusion: had she already killed Leonard, and stashed the body somewhere? No, that was impossible. You would think he would have heard something like that.

"In which case, why did you resume your ill-begotten relationship with Leonard after you had already broken up?" Sheldon asked somewhat cautiously, monitoring her closely and discreetly for hidden signs of emotional distress.

Penny shrugged. "I was young. Stupid. After you left, Leonard asked me out again, and I – well, I was obviously not going to be a famous actress any time soon. You were off winning Nobel Prizes and the best possible future I had involved me getting married and trying to go back to college, get a decent degree." She sighed heavily. "And Leonard was so… so, nice. He always was. He made it clear that he wanted to do things right the second time. Look how well that turned out."

Sheldon opened the door of her bedroom for her, and they both stared at the king-sized bed at the centre of the room, with the floral duvet, the two pillows encased in frilly coverings. It was obviously a bed made for two, a bed made for a married couple.

"Penny?" Sheldon asked, after a while, "Anecdotal evidence suggests that to comfortably sleep, one must first venture into one's bedroom."

Penny laughed shortly. "That's right, Sheldon." She moved towards the bed, Sheldon behind her, and pulled down the blanket, settling herself down at the centre of the bed. He covered her with the comforter, like he had done for Adelle, and stood awkwardly by the bed.

"Thank you for taking care of Adelle, Sheldon," Penny said, smiling up at him.

He nodded, "It was no problem. It was part of the Godfather agreement – _care for Adelle in situation where both parents are incapacitated_." He paused, not knowing what to say. Penny calmly stared up at the ceiling, as if she had forgotten his presence. "Penny, are you alright?" It was a stupid question, but he had to ask. The fact that she was not crying, or pigging out on high-calorie desserts was a miracle in itself.

Penny looked at him. "Of course I'm not alright," she said, before diverting her eyes. She covered her face with her hands, and when she spoke again her voice was steady, but she was obviously making a serious effort to keep it under control, "_God_, Sheldon, I just don't want to cry over this."

"Crying is an important part of the restorative process during grieving too," Sheldon pointed out. Penny didn't respond, just kept her face covered with her hands. Sheldon thought he saw her shoulders shaking, but she didn't make a sound. "Penny, I really am unsure about what to do here," he admitted finally, "Could you give me some direction?" Comforting a friend was hard enough as it is; but one whose sixteen year marriage was over? Sheldon didn't know a lot about emotions but he knew it was serious. About as serious as having the Nobel Prize in Physics stolen from you as a result of being hoodwinked by people you had thought to be your friends.

She slowly lowered her hands from her face, and Sheldon didn't see any tear stains on her cheeks. "Will you sit by me? Please?"

Sheldon fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot. "Is that appropriate?"

Penny's answering laugh was hollow. "Sheldon, my husband has been cheating on me with another woman. I think sitting on my bed is nothing compared to that." He sat down, gingerly, on the bed. "This feels strangely familiar," she said.

"If you are referring to the situation where you dislocated your shoulder," Sheldon started thoughtfully, "I do recall you being in much higher spirits than now."

"Smartass," she muttered under her breath. Sheldon thought she did so with a note of amusement, though he had never been very good at interpreting other's intonation. Penny pushed herself into sitting position. "Sheldon, tell me what you and Adelle saw that got her so upset."

His first instinct was to be as scientific and clinical as possible, but he hesitated, not knowing how to phrase what he had seen in a somewhat less upsetting way. Finally, he went with Adelle's assessment, "Adelle saw her father engaging in osculation with another woman."

"Osculation," Penny furrowed her brow. He felt that the old Penny would have snapped at him, told him she was not in the mood for his big, science-y words, but this Penny seemed to be regarding the matter with an unusual patience. "That's two curves contacting at a common tangent, right?"

"Mathematically," Sheldon informed her, slightly pleased that she had remembered his lessons, especially since Penny often whined more than she paid attention when he tried to teach her geometry, "Scientifically, it is the term for kissing."

"Oh," Penny said quietly. She closed her eyes, "He told me he loved her."

"People have always thrown around that word without understanding its full meaning," Sheldon's voice suggested it was the obvious explanation.

"It's true, it's just that – Leonard always said he was in love with me for years, and it seemed like I was the one who didn't love him enough, but once there was another woman who seemed more accessible, like Leslie Winkle or Alicia, he'd love them too. And there was your doctor friend right after we broke up… though to be fair, I didn't have a hold on him then. I'm not sure I even have a hold on him now," Penny opened her eyes and found that Sheldon was looking at her with something akin to curiosity, a Scientist's keen observation, "I don't love him either. I think I really did, once, but not anymore. Not for the longest time."

Sheldon had always disliked the inconsistency of human emotion, how people could swing from joy to anger in the matter of seconds, how best friends could become enemies in less. He could barely comprehend how a couple who had loved each other enough to get married could let that love completely evaporate, but somehow, thinking back to his own parents' marriage, he supposed he had a slightly inkling.

"Love is highly complicated," he knew what it meant to love Physics, and comic books and Science Fiction, but with humans, less so. "Even the latest research in neurobiology and the action of neurotransmitters is just beginning to be understood. I suppose it's normal for ordinary humans such as yourself and Leonard to be befuddled by it."

"That's very comforting."

"It is, isn't it," Sheldon smiled, pleased at his small success. He patted her on the shoulder, slightly awkwardly, since she was sitting so close. It occurred to Sheldon that a hug might make her feel better, previously he had only hugged her twice, out of gratitude, and she had hugged him a few times, most recently whenever he was about to leave for an extended period of time. But, nonetheless, it was a skill he had never gained mastery of.

But before he could move, she leaned her head on his shoulder and rested there. He thought immediately of the million times before he'd seen her lean on Leonard, or sometimes even Raj, like it was the most natural thing in the world, a simple action she'd done to countless of other people like it didn't mean anything. To her, it probably didn't. He didn't understand how leaning on someone had any purpose, how it meant any more than just unwanted human contact and an increase chance of infection. Yet, he found, this sudden contact did not bother him as much as he thought it would, since he usually abhorred anyone touching him at all. It wasn't… pleasant, just not uncomfortable. The feeling was odd, to say the least, and he did not dare move for fear of disturbing this strange and fragile equilibrium.

Penny kept her head on his shoulder for a long, immeasurable moment, until she finally spoke. "Sheldon? I think I'd like to sleep now."

"Alright," he said, and when she lifted her head he could still feel the warmth of her leaning against him, her hair spilling over his shoulder. She quietly slid under the covers again, and he stood up and helped her straighten the blankets.

"Thank you for everything, Sheldon. I really, really am grateful."

"It was no problem," he said honestly, and she watched him turn the lights out as he left.

XXX

He'd leave the house for now. Go home, get a shower, read a comic book. Perhaps he would bring them dinner later. He wasn't sure either Adelle or Penny would be in the mood to cook for themselves after what happened today. But sustenance was so important, especially when one is upset, he mused. Perhaps he should call Drew for Adelle, get him to come visit. Support is so very important in trying times as well.

He was completely unprepared, however, for the sight that greeted him when he opened the front door, about to leave. Leonard sat, rather dejectedly, on the curb, staring at his feet. The feeling that rose in him was part confusion part complete horror part anger part disgust – what, in God's good name, was he doing, still showing his face in these parts after what he had done? Clearly, the only thing appropriate for Leonard to do right now was leave the country with that silly little bint and never, ever return.

"Leonard?" he asked incredulously, unable to help himself.

His best friend for years sprung to his feet and turned to face him, with more grace than he usually possessed. Sheldon was not at all impressed. "Sheldon, how are they? Are they alright? God, I – "

"They're both fine, no thanks to you," Sheldon folded his arms, "They're sleeping. I don't think you should see them any time soon, though. They're very upset, understandably so, after your heinous betrayal."

Leonard buried his face in his hands, out of shame, no doubt. "I'm sorry. I don't know what – it was stupid. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Don't apologise to me. I'm not the woman you cheated on for some pathetic professor who's field brings no benefit to mankind whatsoever," Sheldon pointed out sharply, "And while I have no idea what you were thinking, it's obvious to me what you were thinking _with_: your penis."

"Sheldon, I never slept with Sam," Sheldon's lips parted slightly in surprise. That was strange, for someone as ruled by his biological imperative as Leonard. "We talked a lot. And I admit, we went on a few dates, but – "

"You were _osculating,_" he sneered, "I think that still counts."

"It does. And I don't discount anything I did. But – " Leonard bit his lip, and looked away. "Look, Sheldon, I screwed up. Majorly. And I was just wondering, if you could – on account for our friendship all these years, perhaps you would be kind enough – "

Sheldon suddenly understood. "No. No, Leonard, I am not letting you stay with me."

"Sheldon, please. I really need your help," Leonard shifted from foot to foot.

"Why don't you go stay with that loose woman you've been consorting with?" Sheldon suggested, glaring at him.

"Please don't call Sam that, Sheldon," Leonard sighed. "I – I just didn't want to run back to her after what happened. I thought it would be in bad taste if I moved in with her right after being kicked out by my… my family."

"Would it be slightly more distasteful than what you've already done?" Sheldon was unsympathetic. "I will not be persuaded otherwise. My father may have been an alcoholic and coasted all his life, but he made it clear there was no place for infidelity in our household. He and my brother used to beat up guys who cheated on Missy. And later I'd send them bottles of pepper spray cleverly disguised as anti-bacterial spray for their wounds."

"Sheldon, you'd gotta help me out. I'd ask Wolowitz or Koothrapali but Bernadette and Deepa are really good friends with Penny, and I don't think it'll work out too well – "

"_I'm_ really good friends with Penny. And I'm Adelle's godfather," Sheldon interrupted, "Or have you been too self-absorbed these few months to notice anything that's been going on with your family?"

Leonard recoiled, stung. "Sheldon – "

"Howard told me once that in situations like this, I had to choose whether I was on Team Leonard, or Team Penny. You may have been my best friend for years, Leonard. But I refuse to be best friends with an adulterous, pathetic excuse for a man who cheats on his wife, especially when he has a teenage daughter. I'm on Team Penny this time, you can count on that." Sheldon turned to leave, Leonard hot on his heels, blatantly refusing to shut up.

"Sheldon – Sheldon, I admit I'm wrong, alright? _I'm_ on Team Penny as well. I was completely in the wrong; I never should have done anything to hurt the both of them. I don't want to hurt them any more by just starting a new life with Sam like they both don't matter. Please let me stay with you. Until I get a new place and straighten things out with Penny and apologise to the both of them."

Sheldon finally stopped. "I'll let you stay with me."

"What?" Leonard's face lit up. "Thanks, Sheldon, it really means a lot – "

"Temporarily. I don't have a say in this, Penny's the one who was asinine enough to marry you. You can stay with me until she decides whether or not she and Adelle ever want to see you again."

XXX

Leonard drove the two of them back to Sheldon's apartment. It was a short ride, but filled with uncomfortable silence, worse than the time he had decided to bring Penny instead of Sheldon with him to Switzerland for Valentines' Day.

"Would you at least let me explain why I did it?" he asked tentatively, stealing a glance at Sheldon, who still had his arms folded and looked completely unapproachable.

"I hardly doubt you have a very good one, but I think you're going to tell me no matter what answer I give you," Sheldon said shortly, and before he could stop himself, added, "Honestly, what possessed you? Penny is your wife; I thought you would have a stronger moral stand on the issue, considering what your father did to your mother. And besides, even if Penny was hardly making any headway in the acting industry when you first met her, she's now a journalist. A journalist in a lifestyle magazine, yes, but you must admit her work brings exponentially more benefit to the world than the work of a _Philosophy professor_."

"I love Samantha."

"Yes, Penny told me," Sheldon's voice was deadpan and unforgiving, "In the same way you said you loved her, or Leslie Winkle, or Stephanie Barnett, or Joyce Kim – "

"I loved Penny. But – Sheldon, I don't expect you to understand this."

"Of course not, no one ever expects me to understand. And I don't," he said, "understand how you can claim to love someone one moment, and not the next. But I'm the one who sings Soft Kitty to your daughter while you break her mother's heart, so I deserve more than your condescension."

This was not the Sheldon he remembered. The Sheldon he remembered would be upset at the betrayal, definitely, but he was being so… human about this whole affair. Sheldon was so often a robot when it came to emotions and relationships, seeing him act like this was just unnerving.

"I haven't been in love with Penny for ages. I'd stopped thinking she was perfect for a long time, but I still thought that she was the perfect girl for me for years. She was beautiful, and she was nice and kind and sweet. But then… life happened, I guess. We stopped talking. We never talked anything out. We didn't even fight. We'd been friends before, even when we weren't lovers, but for a long time we weren't even friends at all. I – I wasn't in love with her anymore. I thought it was natural for people to fall out of love after marriage. It happened with my parents. Then I met Sam and she was different. I don't know. I can see a future with her the way I never could with Penny and maybe, maybe it won't work out as well but I love her for now. It made me do stupid things I shouldn't have but," Leonard stopped. "I don't know. I guess I should stop trying to explain it. The bottom line is that I was an idiot, and I made a huge mistake."

"You got that right," Sheldon snorted. "And if Penny and Adelle never forgive you, it would be way too soon."

"I don't expect them to," Leonard said, as he parked the car. "And I don't expect you to either. I know you care for them a lot."

"Don't worry," Sheldon promised, "I won't."

XXX

A/N: Yes, I know the S/P is moving realllllly slowly, but I don't want to rush it. Anyway, I'm glad Leonard cheating didn't sit too badly with most of you, I was really worried about it :/ But yeah, I'm not taking it as a deux ex machina to happily write him off so Sheldon can be with Penny, I'm taking my time to see how things unfold. As always, I'd love to hear what you guys think. Reviews make a non-genius sixteen year old still stuck in high school very happy :)


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

It was raining when Adelle woke up, the sky was gray outside her window and dark shadows practically covered her bedroom. She listlessly watched as raindrops slid down the glass window. It was very, very cold, and she drew the blankets tighter around her. She suddenly remembered being five years old, and showing her father some pencil sketches for a house with a working fireplace. She'd been very excited at the prospect of being able to read books by a roaring fire in the winter, and he had had to sit her down and very gently explain to her exactly why a fireplace was the epitome of impracticality.

Just like that, the pain rose up from her chest and enveloped her entire person without warning. She screwed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around her chest, thinking, _Oh God, Oh God_. She hated feeling this much, mostly such a wide range of emotions was foreign to her, but betrayal (she was so rarely melodramatic but she couldn't think of another word for it) was a _bitch_ and it left her barely breathing. _Oh God, Oh God_.

It was a moment before her eyes opened wide and she sat up straight in her bed. Her mother – she'd told Sheldon to take care of her, and she trusted her Godfather on this, but how was her mother taking the news?

The first thing she noticed when she opened the door was that there was some loud, rock music playing, music from like over sixty years ago that her mother enjoyed listening to. That was odd, her mother usually only listened to music this loud when she was cooking. Still shivering in the hoodie she'd quickly slipped on earlier, she made her way down the stairs, tip-toeing, for some inexplicable reason.

Her mother beamed when she saw her. Adelle could see that her mother looked tired, weary, somehow, and wasn't wearing any makeup, but she was certainly doing a very good job of hiding it. That made her even more nervous. Her mother was hardly the sort to hide what she was feeling or what she thought. "Hey, Adelle! Did you sleep well?"

"Very well, thank you," Adelle said cautiously, stepping into the kitchen. "What are you cooking?"

"I'm making spaghetti and potato salad," her mother told her brightly, "Hey, didn't you mention that Drew was stuck home alone 'cos his mom was away at some conference thing?"

"Yes, his mother's going for the 21st International Mathematics and Statistics Conference at – "

"Why don't you invite him over for dinner? I'm making plenty, and thinking of getting Sheldon and Uncle Howard and Aunt Bernadette and Uncle Raj and Deepa over too, so we'll make it a party!"

"Um," Adelle said, uncertainly. She studied her mother's face. As far as she could tell, there was nothing forced in that expression. She thought back to the psychology lessons her paternal grandmother had imparted to her a while back. Which of the seven stages of grief was this? Denial? Definitely denial. "I'll go call him?"

"Awesome! Could you call Sheldon and get him to call the others while you're at it? And maybe you could help me cook the hot dogs later. That's a love."

Her phone was in her room, on her bedside table, and she was glad for the privacy. Drew picked up on the second ring, "Adelle? What's up?"

"My dad was cheating," she said, completely without thinking. It was still strange saying it aloud. "I saw him… making out with another woman in a café."

"Oh – Oh God. That's terrible. I'm sorry. How are you – how's your mom?" Drew sounded genuinely concerned, and she had to shut her eyes to keep herself from crying again.

"I – I think I'll be okay. I'm just shocked, and upset, but I'm worried about my mother," she said, pacing around her room, "She's cooking this huge feast as we speak, and she's invited you over for dinner. The whole clique is invited, minus my father, of course. And she's listening to rock music from the '70s at an obnoxious volume."

"Wow," Drew said, sucking in a breath. "That sounds – I don't know. It's not completely unexpected."

"What do you mean?" Adelle asked, running a hand agitatedly through her hair.

"Well, when my dad died, my mom and I were devastated, naturally," Drew explained, slowly, "But my brother, he went all weird. He just threw himself into his schoolwork and aced all his classes, picked up more extra-curricular activities, made bad jokes… It was frightening. Maybe it's her way with dealing with the shock."

"Possibly," Adelle said, "But my mother's never been the sort to act like that. The cooking, seeking out company, listening to music… she does that when she's happy. She cries like there's no tomorrow, and throws things when she's upset. Yet there's definitely something wrong. _I don't know_." Adelle hated admitting she was ignorant of something, that she didn't know what to do. It made her feel so helpless.

"Hey. Don't freak out, okay? I'll be right there," Drew told her, "Thank your mom for the invitation."

"I will. Thanks, Drew."

They hung up, and Adelle buried her face in her palms for a moment. She hated this, this fear, this sadness, this not knowing. She felt like a bullet had torn through her chest. Part of her wanted to hate her father for making her go through this, this ridiculously confusing mix of emotions that was muddling up her logic and making her feel so pathetically vulnerable.

She'd heard her parents and Uncle Raj and Uncle Howard compare Sheldon to Spock, from Star Trek, before, and she knew that often they extended the comparison to her. Now, more than ever, she felt like the half-Vulcan, half-Human extraterrestrial, with all the logic and sensibility of a scientist, from her father, and the vortex of entropy that was human emotions from her mother. She was about as comfortable with emotion as Spock was, and she'd gone through sixteen years carefully filing away any unwanted feelings in preference for cool logic. Now she was completely unable to control the emotions that ripped through her whole body, and it felt absolutely awful.

She shook her head in an effort to clear her mind. Sheldon, she thought, I have to call him.

Her godfather picked up immediately, "Adelle? How are you feeling? Is your mother alright?"

"I'm feeling better, Sheldon, thanks so much," Adelle told her godfather, "My mother is, however, behaving strangely."

"Strangely?" Sheldon sounded perplexed. "What do you mean?"

"Well, firstly, she's invited you to dinner. She wants you to invite Uncle Howard and Uncle Raj and their respective partners as well," Adelle informed him, "She's cooking a rather elaborate meal and generally behaving like nothing wrong has happened."

"I thought she was being uncharacteristically calm when I comforted her earlier as well," Sheldon said, "She told me she didn't want to cry over the matter."

"I'm worried for her," Adelle confided urgently, "I don't know what to do. Will you please come? Perhaps there's some strange psychological reason behind it, like she wants her friends around to make her feel less alone in the awake of her husband's abandonment."

"But why Howard and Raj? They've always been more of Leonard's friends than hers," Sheldon pointed out.

"She is friends with Aunt Bernadette and Deepa," Adelle said, "Though I do suppose we spend more time with Father's friends than Mother's." It was true. She adored Sheldon, and she considered Uncle Howard, Aunt Bernadette, Uncle Raj and Deepa as her friends. Before Drew, they were practically her only friends in the world. On the other hand, she often thought her mother's friends from her acting days or back in Nebraska to be rather insipid. She liked some of her mother's friends from work well enough, but they were journalists, not scientists. Her mother always went out with her friends, and rarely brought them home, unlike her father, whose friends were always welcome. She thought about how she and her father used to make fun of her mother's friends. Another mix of feelings rose in her chest, and she had to take awhile to identify each one: guilt, anger, and sadness.

Her silence spoke volumes. "I'll be there," Sheldon said finally, "And I'll invite the others, explain the situation. Oh, and there's one thing you should know, Adelle."

"Yes?" she asked. She suddenly felt tired.

"Your father is staying with me for the time being," Sheldon told her. When she said nothing, he continued, "He thought it would be more moral than running off with that Philosophy professor we saw him with earlier. Grasping at straws, in my opinion, but he is trying. I thought I'd let him stay until I got you and your mother's opinion."

Adelle's throat felt dry. She was certain she croaked out her next words, and it was a miracle Sheldon could hear what she was saying, "I can't speak for my mother. And I can't decide who you open your home to. But on my part – I really… can't see my father for the time being."

"Alright," Sheldon said, "I'll see you later, Adelle. I hope you feel better."

Sheldon always meant what he said. He found it almost impossible to lie, doing the moral and logical thing was second nature to him, and though he hardly admitted it, his friends were important to him. Perhaps people would think it strange but she found his presence very comforting.

She remembered how kids at her grade school used to tease her for being a nerd, pull her hair and knock her pencils to the ground. "Just forget about it," her father used to tell her, as he slowly helped her re-braid her hair, "They'll all be working for you in a couple of years." Then she'd gone on to high school and gotten used to being ignored instead of made fun of, and her father's advice seemed to really work: she'd forget about the fact that people rarely spoke to her, or that teachers seemed to resent the fact that she knew more than they did. Forget everything that could force her to feel something more than she was strictly comfortable with.

Now this had happened and she couldn't possibly forget any of this, her father's role in her life before or what he had done that had hurt her and her mother so, freaking, much.

XXX

"Was that Adelle?" Leonard asked, the moment Sheldon got off the phone. "Is she alright?"

"You know, most civilisations consider eavesdropping to be extremely rude," Sheldon said mildly, "But yes, it was Adelle. As it turns out, her mother has invited me to dinner, and I'm supposed to pass on the invitation to Wolowitz and Koothrapali. I think we can safely assume the invitation does not extend to you."

"Dinner?" Leonard looked confused, "So Penny's alright?"

"So it would seem. Adelle is very worried," Sheldon said, "Penny is taking this whole thing remarkably calmly, which is, I'm sure we'll all agree, much more than you deserve."

"I feel terrible," Leonard said, flopping down on the couch.

"You should," Sheldon said, completely unsympathetic, "Has your no-good, home-wrecking broad contacted you yet?"

"Don't call her that," Leonard said, somewhat half-heartedly. He looked dejected, somewhat like a kicked puppy. Ironically, Sheldon was reminded of all the times Leonard would sulk back when Penny still had the sense to reject his advances.

Uncharacteristic anger flared through Sheldon. It annoyed him, somehow, that Leonard could still defend that woman after what the both of them had done to Penny and Adelle. He spoke before he could think better of it, "Your daughter does not seem particularly opposed to your living with me. But she did add, however, that she did not want to see you, at least for now." It should not have been so satisfying to see Leonard's face change rapidly from hopeful to completely miserable, and Sheldon felt oddly guilty. "If you excuse me, I have to call Howard and Raj." He retreated to the privacy of his bedroom, for some reason, he could not look at Leonard's face for the moment.

Leonard watched Sheldon leave the room. _Way to screw up your life, Hofstadter_, he thought, leaning back on Sheldon's couch. His wife chased him out of the house, his daughter didn't want to speak with him, his best friend was terribly upset with him and soon his closest friends would be as well, and the best part was, it was completely his fault. He should not have – gone on with Sam while he was still married to Penny. He'd wanted too much again, wanted the idyllic family with the beautiful wife and the perfect daughter and at the same time, the woman he loved_. Speaking of Samantha_…

He dialled her number, and she picked up the phone immediately, "Leonard? Oh God, I've been so worried. I'm sorry, we should have been more careful, what happened? Where are you right now?"

It took him a moment before he could answer her, and it was difficult to steady his voice, "I'm staying with a friend right now. That man we saw earlier. With Adelle. He's my best friend, I thought it would be better."

"Sheldon, was it? Oh Leonard, I'm so sorry Adelle saw. I really – I really did hope to meet her in a better way."

"It happened," Leonard said, closing his eyes, "And there's nothing we can do about it. We never should have…"

"I love you," she said fiercely, cutting in, "And I'm not giving up on this. Don't you dare even think about it."

"I'm not giving up," he said quietly. He felt very old, and very tired. He wanted to go back home and crawl under the covers and listen to loud, emo music, he wanted to talk to his wife, calmly, about all this, he wanted his daughter to forgive him and he wanted to keep having Samantha in his life, but really, it was more than what a guy like him deserved.

"Good," Samantha said. She'd always been so much stronger than he was, "We'll deal with this, alright, Leonard? We'll fix it, or at least make it better. Somehow."

"I'm tired of running away," he said, truthful, and it sounded so stupid aloud, but somehow, he felt Sam would understand in a way no one else ever had.

"You're not going to," Sam said firmly, "Go get some rest, Leonard."

They said goodbye, and he thought about his first actual date with Samantha as he put the phone down. Sam had surprised them both by asking about Adelle. "Tell me about your daughter," she had asked, "I don't think you talk about her very often."

That was true. He normally had the tendency to talk his colleagues' ear of with Adelle's accomplishments, but it was – different, to say the least with Samantha. Neither of them really knew how much to pretend didn't exist and how much to be truthful about, and Leonard's marriage and family was a sensitive topic between the two of them from the start.

"She's really smart," he said, slowly, "and she has my eyes and my terrible eyesight and my hair colour – but she's pretty, though. She keeps to herself a lot." He was speaking almost without thinking now, talking about Adelle was one of the easiest things in the world to him. If only actually talking to Adelle was as simple. "I remember this one time I came downstairs for breakfast, and she was about thirteen then. She rarely spoke, she was quiet to begin with, and you know how teenagers are, but this time, she actually initiated a conversation. 'I had a very wonderful dream, father,' she told me, very solemnly, 'I dreamt that I'd managed to solve the Kobiyashi Maru without cheating, but I can't for the life of me remember how.'"

"She certainly sounds like you," Samantha smiled.

"She told me that Spock had complimented her solution for being outstanding in its simplicity and logic. She said it was the best moment of her life, even though it wasn't real. He was always her favourite character," Leonard recalled.

It was so rare that Adelle actually volunteered information about herself that somehow didn't involve school or science that Leonard remembered all those conversations in great detail. He was glad for that, now. There was no knowing if Adelle would ever actually speak to him again. Leonard groaned.

He was lying face down on the couch, making sure to keep his feet off Sheldon's new spot, when Sheldon re-emerged from his room. Sheldon stopped in his tracks. "Leonard?"

"Yes?" Leonard's voice was muffled.

"I want you to know that…" Sheldon paused, and finally said, "I hope you manage to fix this."

"Thanks," it was impossible to tell if Leonard was being sarcastic.

Sheldon moved over to where Leonard was lying and patted him on the shoulder. "There, there," he said.

XXX

Adelle dove for the door when the doorbell rang, nearly knocking over the chair when she leapt out of it. It was Drew, as she expected, holding a bouquet of orchids. "Hey," he said, "I got these for your mom on my way over. I thought she might appreciate them."

"I'm sure she would," Adelle said, "Thanks for coming." Before she could stop herself, she hugged him very tightly, careful not to squash the flowers. Hugging Drew was comforting in a way Sheldon's irrefutable logic wasn't, it was warm and it was safe and somehow, always made her feel better.

He kissed her forehead when they broke away. "Hey, it'll be alright, okay? Don't worry." Completely illogical reassurances, but she smiled anyway, comforted.

"Mother? Drew's here, he brought you flowers," Adelle called, ushering Drew in and shutting the door behind him. Penny emerged from the kitchen, her smile bright. She had powdered, and really did look like she was hosting a dinner party.

"Thanks so much for having me," Drew said politely, and Penny beamed.

"It's always nice to have you over, Drew," Penny said, pleased, as she took the flowers from him. "I'll get a vase for these, they're lovely."

"You sure you don't need any help with dinner, mother?" Adelle asked, concerned.

"Of course not, you children run along. Dinner will be ready before you know it!" she shooed them upstairs.

"Okay, that's definitely overdoing it," Adelle muttered to Drew as they ascended the stairs, "I was right to worry."

XXX

"Well, that was awkward," Drew said, as he dried off the dish Adelle passed to him. Dinner had been a long and arduous affair, and he and Adelle were only too eager to volunteer to wash the dishes, in hopes of avoiding the tension that a social situation under such circumstances usually brought.

"And the greatest understatement of the century award goes to Drew Chang," Adelle scoffed, scrubbing carefully at a plate, "Awkward does not even begin to cover it." Everyone at dinner, save Howard and Bernadette's adorable toddler Kara, knew what had happened, and were trying too hard to pretend nothing had happened, save Sheldon, who spent the whole meal with his eyes trained on Penny, waiting for her façade to slip, and only taking a few instances to roll his eyes at his friends' lack-lustre attempts to make the evening less unbearable for everyone. The missing presence at the table was felt by everyone, and for awhile, Adelle kept glancing at the door, hoping beyond hope that her father would come in at any moment, like nothing wrong had happened, and this whole, terrible day was just a figment of her imagination. Then her logical, scientist side won out and she stopped – no good scientist ever ignores conclusive results just because she doesn't like them. "I don't know what to do," she said quietly.

Drew looked sympathetic, but equally helpless. "I don't think anyone does."

"I know," Adelle didn't meet his eyes, and instead focused on the plate she was scrubbing. "It's like being six," she said, trying to keep her voice light and humorous, but failing miserably, "and finding out my mother didn't know the difference between cosmology and astronomy. Or being eleven and realising I was better at my father in pure math."

Drew bit his lip, and gently bumped her shoulder. "Part of being a kid is realising your parents screw up as much as anyone," he said, "All we can do is learn to live with it and hope we don't screw our kids over as much."

"Our kids?" Adelle didn't usually speak in sentence fragments, but she made an exception for Drew.

"Yes, our hypothetical, future kids," Drew said, grinning at her, "They'll have your brains and your looks and my extensive knowledge of the Marvel and DC Universe."

"I see what you're trying to do," Adelle said shrewdly, "You're attempting to flirt with me, however ineptly, to distract me from the horrors of my family life."

"Definitely. Is it working?"

She bumped his shoulder back, "Maybe just a little."

XXX

"We really should go," Bernadette said, not meeting Penny's eyes. "It's going to be past Kara's bedtime soon, and she gets very crabby if she doesn't get enough sleep.

The adults sat in the living room, just like they used to in Leonard and Sheldon's apartment before Sheldon had left and Penny made what now appeared to be the biggest mistake of her life and married Leonard. This time, Kara filled up Leonard's empty spot, playing with her toys and completely oblivious to the tension in the room.

"Yeah, it's getting really late," Howard said, jumping at the excuse to leave. He stood up and stretched lazily, before lifting his daughter up, making her giggle happily, before she yawned sleepily.

Penny smiled weakly. She'd spent the whole night tirelessly making pleasant and overly-enthusiastic conversation, speaking about things she usually assumed her husband's friends would not want to hear about: her recent promotion at work, her colleagues, the people she interviewed. Sure, she'd mention her job from time to time with Deepa and Bernadette, and she usually gave Sheldon updates about her work life when he came on Saturdays, but otherwise, it was not something she usually conversed about. They were all Scientists, after all, Adelle and Drew included, and she wrote for a lifestyle magazine. But right now she was tired out, and filled with that awkward feeling one got when you feared you'd revealed too much about yourself, or over-estimated an acquaintance's interest in your life.

"It is getting late," Deepa said, looking at Raj for support. He shrugged. Raj still tended to clam up amongst women when he was tense. "We better get going."

Bernadette stood up, before sitting down again heavily with a huff. She folded her arms and said, "Alright, I can't keep it in any longer! I know we've all been staunchly avoiding the topic all evening, but Penny, I have to say I'm really upset at Leonard for what he did to you. It was… IS completely unforgiveable, and if you like, I still have the cultures for the Azithromycin-resistant Syphilis I was working on a few months back." She looked very intimidating for such a small woman, and Howard and Raj both looked alarmed.

"Sweetie, we both agreed that we wouldn't bring this up…" Howard started, but Bernadette snapped at him.

"We should have said this to her when we first walked in, Howard!" Bernadette snarled, which made baby Kara whimper a little. "You know that if you or Raj cheated, Penny would be on you two in a heartbeat with a specially sharpened knife!"

"She's right," Deepa spoke up vehemently. "You shouldn't have to go through this alone. Completely unforgiveable is putting it lightly. You'll have a hard time dealing with castration in court, but if you want me to mess with his mind a little, Raj and I have watched a lot of psychological thrillers." She nudged her long time boyfriend. "Say something, Raj."

"It's really okay," Penny spoke up, noting the completely torn expression on Raj's face. "I really, really appreciate it, but I didn't invite you guys over to force you to choose sides. I'm glad you came. Leonard is still your friend, and – "

"He shouldn't have done what he did," Howard said unexpectedly, running a hand through his hair. "I mean, my own dad…" he cut off roughly, and looked at the ground. Bernadette, now looking sympathetic, squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "My dad was an ass. And I can't believe that Leonard would do that to you and… and Adelle."

Sheldon looked pensive.

"I'm – I'm really sorry, Penny," Raj managed to squeak out, finally. "What Leonard did – not cool, dude." He had the (somewhat endearing) tendency to somehow stutter and overuse American slang when under pressure around women.

If Penny had felt worn out before, she felt even more so now. "Thanks, guys," she said softly. She placed her hands on her knees and stared at them, not looking up. The urge to cry was there again, and she beat it down fiercely.

"I think, given Penny's body language, she is trying to signal to us she wants to be alone," Sheldon said, speaking up at long last.

"Sheldon's right," Bernadette said, and Penny could practically feel her concerned gaze, "We better make a move. Feel better, Penny."

"Thanks for coming," Penny said quietly. The others filed out, murmuring a goodbye to Adelle and Drew in the kitchen before leaving. Only Sheldon remained, and she looked up, after a long while, to meet his eyes. "Not going home, Sheldon?"

"No, being the closest to you and far more tactful than the others, I remained behind to comfort you," Sheldon said matter-of-factly.

Penny laughed. Sheldon took that as his cue to continue, "Though I suppose now would be a good time to inform you that I have decided to let Leonard live with me, unless you are greatly opposed to it. He feels uncomfortable immediately cohabiting with that tramp, after what conspired today, and I took pity on him. It's still your call, though."

"It's your house," she replied, "Your decision."

"Funny, Adelle said about the same thing. More eloquently, of course, but you got the gist of it… though she did add that she didn't want to see her father for the time being."

"That's unsurprising," Penny said, "I've never seen her so upset before." She clenched her fists in her lap, digging her nails into her palms.

"Yes, she is very sensible that way," Sheldon said thoughtfully. "Penny, while I remain unsure as to why you're being so uncharacteristically unaffected by Leonard's treachery, I would like you to know that we could – talk about it, if you feel so inclined. And also, I no longer consider Leonard my surrogate family. You and Adelle are still are, of course."

"I'm glad, Sheldon," Penny looked at him and forced a smile, trying to sound grateful, "But I think this is something I should get through by myself."

Sheldon sighed, the way he often did when she gave a wrong answer when he tried to teach her, or failed to notice a Science-Fiction reference. "Penny, do you remember when you first moved opposite Leonard and I, and I encountered the entropy that was your apartment for the first time?"

"Yes, you broke into my apartment and cleaned it," Penny recalled, slightly amused, but not knowing where this was going.

"Yes, but that's not the point. Do you remember what I said to you then?"

Penny furrowed her brow, confused. "…No?" Really, all she remembered was the confrontation the morning she discovered that stupid organisational schematic he'd left taped to her wardrobe.

"I told you that you didn't have to live like that, and that I was here for you," Sheldon said, his blue eyes earnest. "Despite the differences in context those words are still applicable now."

Penny didn't know what to say, but Sheldon didn't seem to be finished. He sighed. "Please note that I do not usually condone this," he warned, and before she could ask for a clarification, he reached over and hugged her.

It felt nice.

A/N: Apologies for the lateness! This was DEFINITELY the hardest chapter to write so far. Usually I just type everything straight out and then edit, for this chapter I kept deleting full paragraphs and pages because nothing would work ): I hope it doesn't show. D: But thanks SO MUCH for all your support so far! :) It's like three a.m. in the morning before I leave for vacation, but I really wanted to publish this before I disappear.

(On an off-note, I hope Sheldon never runs out of insulting names for Samantha. I find it oddly funny whenever he swears... is that bad?)


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

He had had this dream before, several times since Sheldon had moved back, so Leonard knew straight away this wasn't real.

That didn't make it feel any better. He was leaving his bedroom in the house he used to share with Sheldon, ready for work, when he noticed that Sheldon, Penny and Adelle were sitting around the living room, waiting for him. When he entered, they all turned to face him at the same time, much like when they had confronted Sheldon about his inability to drive, only now the tables were turned.

"Have a seat, Leonard," Sheldon said, all seriousness, from where he was sitting at his spot. Penny, who had been sitting beside him, shifted so Leonard could sit between the two of them. Adelle had taken his usual seat and was wearing an unreadable expression that made Leonard feel uncomfortable.

"So… what's up?" he asked nervously, trying to lighten the mood. Sheldon and Adelle were not amused, while Penny's expression was pitying.

"We have to talk, Leonard," Sheldon said, his voice business-like and official. "It's very important."

"Talk? About what?"

"You're a terrible husband, Leonard," Penny said gently, "And an awful father."

"You and Penny hardly ever communicate anymore, and you kept Adelle from a college education until she was fifteen, though she was clearly ready for it when she was twelve," Sheldon pointed out. Adelle was still not speaking. "She had to waste three valuable years in high school, when the material was clearly beneath her."

"That's not fair; Penny agreed with me that we wanted Adelle to have a normal childhood!" Leonard argued, "Adelle understood this, and when she was fifteen I was the one who helped her get admission into Caltech!"

"That is true, father, and I thank you for that," Adelle said calmly, smiling politely at him, as if she was a politician and not a sixteen year old future-cosmologist, "But you cannot deny that Sheldon has helped me further my scientific career far more in the past few months than you have in years. He's been extremely helpful in sourcing for work and research attachments, his knowledge in the field of cosmology far exceeds yours, he recommends books and interesting articles to me on almost a daily basis, and, most importantly, he gave me Dr. Elizabeth Plimpton's email so we could communicate about our shared interest in Galactic dark matter distribution."

"Dr. Plimpton? That's the scientist you slept with, right, Leonard? Why didn't you let Adelle speak to her earlier?" Penny asked.

"It was a one-time thing! I didn't even have her email. And I thought you would be upset if I did that!"

Sheldon gave a snort of derision, "I hardly doubt Penny would be so selfish were it a matter of Adelle's academic success. At the very least, you should have discussed it with her."

"That's not fair, you guys aren't being fair!" Leonard was pleading now. "It's not like I haven't _tried _to be a good husband and a good father – "

"Do or do not, there is no try," Penny said solemnly, and Leonard got a strange sense of déjà vu.

"It's not like we haven't _tried_ to love you," Adelle said bluntly, "but you have to admit, it's difficult."

Leonard knew exactly where this conversation was going. He tried to wake up, but he couldn't. _Wake up, Hofstadter; wake up wake up wake up_

"Yeah, I mean, look at Adelle, and how she behaves around Sheldon. She's completely capable of expressing fondness for a father-figure," Penny pointed out pleasantly.

"And Penny, if she could love a Neanderthal like her ex-boyfriend, Kurt, I wonder why she'd found it so difficult just to say she loved you when you were dating," Sheldon chimed in. "It's not like Kurt was the model boyfriend, exactly. He was stupid, he couldn't spell, he cheated on her…"

"Besides, you have to admit, cheating on your wife isn't exactly the sort of behaviour that suggests having tried to be a good husband," Adelle said, her tone icy. Alright, this part of the dream was new.

"Yeah, Leonard," Penny glared at him, now completely hostile, "Turns out you weren't so different from Kurt or Mike or all those other assholes after all."

_Wake up, Hofstadter; wake up wake up WAKE UP _

He was drenched in sweat when he bolted upright in bed, breathing heavily. Sheldon raised an eyebrow at him. "Good morning, Leonard," Sheldon said, "Has your guilty conscience caught up on you at last?"

"I guess you could say that," Leonard admitted.

Sheldon shrugged. "That's good. It's what you deserve for cheating on Penny with the waste of University resources and money that is Professor Samantha Drake."

"Don't call her that, Sheldon," Leonard said tiredly.

"Would you rather I call her a home-wrecking slut?" Sheldon questioned, tilting his head.

"Just call her Samantha," Leonard grumbled, though he knew it was a lost cause. The dream from earlier was still playing in his head. "I think I want to go apologise to Penny, try and set things right."

Sheldon hummed. "Are you sure that's wise? Both Penny and Adelle have made it clear they have no wish to see you anytime soon."

"Yes, but I really want to get some sort of – explanation in. Besides, if I don't apologise now I'll probably chicken out and never do it," Leonard pointed out.

"That does sound like the sort of thing you would do," Sheldon mused. "Well, my advice would be not to go. Penny needs time to simmer over what happened, and as long as you give her a reasonable period of time, there's a slight chance she won't maul you like a rabid wolverine when she next sees you. And given the circumstances, it wouldn't hurt your cause if you respected her wishes, for once."

Leonard scowled at him, "I'm going. It's my marriage, for now, at least, and it's my screw up."

Sheldon sighed, "Well, I suppose it is not the first time my counsel has fallen on deaf ears. Good luck."

XXX

Except in the case of illness, Adelle could not remember a time in the past sixteen years when she had woken up on a Sunday before her mother. She was so used to waking up to the smell of breakfast and coffee and, occasionally, the sound of her mother belting out popular show tunes, that the absolute stillness of the house was all the more chilling.

She got out of bed and began her morning routine, all the while thinking that she really wasn't evolutionarily adapted to this sort of thing, coping with heartbroken mothers and philandering fathers and the like. She was already getting used to the idea of it – or so she hoped. When she woke up this morning, the happenings from the day before flooded into her mind, but there was no pain, only a strange numbness. Adelle wasn't used to feeling, per se, but she found feeling nothing wasn't particularly pleasant either, even in comparison to strong emotions such as betrayal and anger.

Tip-toeing out of her room, she crept quietly to her parents' – well, her mother's – room and opened the door slightly, peeking in. "Mother?" she called softly, checking if she was awake.

"Good morning, Adelle," her mother replied, and Adelle pushed the door open further and stepped in cautiously.

"I came to check on how you were," Adelle said. "Are you alright?"

Her mother smiled. She was lying on her side, facing the door, and Adelle noticed that she was still sleeping on the right side of the bed. She wondered absently how long it took to kick those sort of habits. "I'm dealing with it, honey," her mother told her, and she sounded old, somehow.

"Oh," Adelle said, unsure. "Do you, want to, maybe, talk about it?"

Her mother grinned, and it seemed genuine this time. "Sheldon said the exact same thing to me last night. The two of you are so alike, I can't believe it sometimes," she sounded amused. "But sure. Come lie here with me." She patted the bed next to her, and smiled brightly when Adelle, after a moment of confusion, moved towards the bed and joined her mother under the covers. They lay there in silence for awhile, almost awkwardly, until her mother spoke up.

"So you seemed pretty happy with Drew last night, huh," she said slyly, "he treating you okay?"

"Yes," Adelle was unsure of what to say, she rarely spoke of such things with her mother, "He's… I really like him."

"You make sure he doesn't pressurise you into doing anything you don't want to do," Penny said firmly, "

"You mean… in a physical sense?" Adelle asked, mortified that they were actually having this conversation, "No, um, Drew is very traditional. It's all good."

"Make sure the relationship moves at a speed you're comfortable with," Penny lectured seriously, "I know sixteen is the age when you're all starry eyed and want to throw declarations of love around like they don't mean anything, but if you need to be very clear of what you're feeling before you do or say anything."

"Love? Drew and I have discussed it on several occasions," Adelle admitted, "and we've come to the conclusion that it's something far too complicated for us to fully understand at this point, and that we shouldn't use the term too lightly. We both really like each other, though, and we do foresee a future where we're together for a long time, so it's not completely out of the question."

A strange expression passed over her mother's face, and Adelle furrowed her brow in worry. "I see," her mother said softly, "That's good. I'm glad."

"Mother, that thing that happened with father," Adelle said, evading carefully but unable to avoid the topic any longer, "Are you – how are you getting along with it?"

"So, I'm fooling no one, it seems. Well, it's not the first time something like that has happened – not with your father, with past boyfriends, but it's… different. I never thought he would do something like that," she laughed dryly. "But at the same time, we haven't been in love for years, so. I guess it shouldn't hurt this much."

Adelle bit her lip. She'd known for ages that her parents weren't in love, but hearing her mother say it so nonchalantly, it felt strange. "Perhaps time will help," she offered. "And you have us, Sheldon, Deepa, Aunt Bernadette and me."

Her mother sighed, and rubbed her eyes briefly. "I know, sweetie. And I really appreciate it."

"I see you took of your wedding ring," Adelle said.

"I did. Put it away in the drawer, I couldn't look at it anymore," her mother inspected her right hand, where there now was a tan line in place of a ring on her ring finger. She paused for a moment, before speaking again, "Would you like to have it? Sometime later, after all this has blown over?"

"Me?" Adelle asked, stunned into one-word sentences, "Why?"

Her mother shrugged. "Well, I certainly have no use for it anymore. But after all this, Leonard won't be my husband, but he'll always be your father. And a girl needs a father who'll stick with her through everything."

"But after what he did to you, the family…?" Adelle asked.

"I know you really don't want to think about your father right now. Frankly, neither do I. It'll be a long time before I can forgive him," her mother explained gently, "But you need to know this: your father stopped loving me. He might stop loving that tramp he's with right now too, one day. But he'll never stop loving you."

"If he loved me," Adelle said, with most unbecoming stubbornness, "he wouldn't have cheated on you."

Her mother's answering smile was sad. "You and Drew were right, honey. Love is complicated."

XXX

They spoke for a while longer, before Adelle volunteered to go down and get her mother some coffee and some milk for herself. She'd barely finished pouring a glass of low-fat milk when somebody rang the doorbell. Hoping it was Sheldon, she set the carton down and dashed to the door, practically throwing it open.

She couldn't stop her face from falling when she saw who it was. "Oh," was all she could say in her surprise. "I thought it would be Sheldon."

"Sheldon?" he looked surprised, and also a little hurt, but he concealed it quickly. "Why would he come here?"

"That doesn't matter, father," she said quietly. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Delly," he said, using his silly, childish nickname for her. It made her scowl. "How's your mother doing?"

"Not well," she said candidly. "You didn't answer my question."

"I came to apologise to you and your mother," her father explained, rather awkwardly, "Make things better."

"There are few things you can do at this point to make things better," Adelle said, completely unforgiving. "Besides, I don't think mother wants to see you right now. You should leave."

"Come on, Delly…" her father pleaded, and she had to restrain herself from snapping at him. He had no right, after everything he had done, to just come here and ask to speak to her mother and call her _Delly_ like she was twelve years old and he had done nothing wrong.

"Adelle, honey? What's taking you so long?" she could hear her mother coming down the stairs, and she panicked.

"Leave, father, please, this really isn't a good time," she tried, but her father pushed past her and stepped into the house.

"Penny," he started, but she was glaring him with a fearsome intensity. Behind him, he heard Adelle say, "Oh God," quietly. "I came to apologise."

"What the hell are you even doing here?" Penny shouted, ignoring his earlier explanation, "Didn't I tell you to stay away from us?"

"I – I'm sorry, Penny. What I did was wrong and there is absolutely no excuse for it. I feel terrible, but I really lo-"

"Don't you dare use that word in front of me, Leonard Hofstadter," Penny snarled. "You don't know what it fucking means. You didn't know it twenty years ago when you were convinced you were in love with me, and you don't have the right to just throw it in my face like it's a good excuse to tear everything we had apart!"

"_I know what it means,_ Penny! I know now! Would I have done it if I didn't?" Leonard asked, his voice raising to meet hers.

"That doesn't give you the right to just march back in here like you own this place!"

"I do own this place!"

"Oh, that's rich. You think I'm going to give up my daughter and my house to you so you can live here with that little bitch you've been banging behind my back?" Penny demanded furiously.

"Stop calling Samantha that!" Leonard shouted back, completely forgetting what he had come here to do. Seriously, between Sheldon constantly insulting Samantha and this, he was starting to lose it.

"Oh, aren't we defensive of our precious little whore," Penny sneered. Adelle was moving away from the door, back toward the kitchen, and he could see she looked absolutely horrified. They'd never actually fought like this in front of Adelle – scrap that, they hadn't had a shouting match since they got back together after Sheldon left. He'd forgotten how bad it could get, how unreasonable they could be.

"Don't act all high and mighty – yes, I cheated on you with Samantha, but we've only been on a couple of dates. We hadn't gotten any further than making out. That's barely any different from you and Sheldon, is it? It's not like I haven't been noticing how close you've been getting. He's now your best friend instead of mine, isn't he? Or is that just what the two of you are claiming? Just because you do it under my roof and I know about it doesn't mean it's any different from cheating!"

Leonard regretted the words once they left his mouth. "Oh God, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry," he began, babbling incoherently, but he knew anything he said wouldn't make a difference. People had always said Adelle looked like Leonard, but right now, she and her mother wore completely identical expressions – a mixture of horror and shock and hurt that made him want to run away from what used to be their house and never look back, ever.

"How dare you. How _dare_ you say something like that?" Penny seethed, once she found her voice again. It was shaking, but the anger in it was apparent. "It's not enough that you cheat on me and you let your daughter catch you in the act, you say something like that to me? In front of her? You were dating the bitch! You knew exactly what the hell you were doing and you went ahead and did it anyway! Sheldon and I are friends and – Oh God, I can't believe – " She turned away from him, her face in her hands. "Get out of the house before I throw you out."

She turned and went back up the stairs, and Adelle looked from one parent to another. Leonard couldn't meet his daughter's eyes. She followed her mother, leaving him alone downstairs unable to move.

Finally, he turned to leave, but Adelle called out from behind him.

"Dad?" he turned around in surprise. Adelle had never called him that, it had always been 'father' ever since she could speak. She threw something small at him. He tried to catch it, but his complete lack of athletic prowess resulted in it landing between his feet. He recognised it immediately; it was Penny's wedding ring.

"Mother was going to give it to me. After some time had passed, anyway. She said that no matter what happened, even if you weren't her husband, you would still be my father. That – you'd always love me," Adelle wouldn't look at him. "Take it with you when you leave. Maybe we'll forgive you one day, but not now." Then she turned and left, for good, this time.

Leonard picked up the ring from the ground. He remembered going to the jewellery store to buy it with Raj and Howard. It seemed like an age ago, when he was younger and things were simpler and he hadn't messed up everything beyond repair. He didn't deserve the two of them, Penny and Adelle. They were kind and good and forgiving and he was just Leonard.

He slipped the ring into his pocket and took out the keys to their house. He was going to let himself in, but had rang the doorbell, since he didn't really have a right to this place anymore. He remembered buying this house, how much Penny had wanted to stay here.

He dropped the keys into the bowl on his way out.

XXX

Sheldon opened the door with a superior expression when Leonard returned. "From your expression, I see your mission was unsuccessful, as I predicted," he said. "Now I'm going to have to go over there and do some damage control."

Leonard said nothing, only fell face down on the couch in silence. Sheldon, in an uncharacteristic moment of perceptiveness, immediately picked up that something was wrong. "Leonard? What happened over there? What did you say?"

Leonard didn't reply for a moment, but finally said, "I… might have implied that Penny had been cheating on me with you."

"Implied?" Sheldon was horrified.

"Well, not implied, exactly. I said it. Shouted it, more of," Leonard admitted, wanting to crawl into a whole and die.

"Well done, Leonard," Sheldon said, his voice full of venom. "Congratulations on continuing to find new and innovative ways to hurt my best friend and my god daughter. I'm going over there to make sure they're alright, and when I'm back, you better be gone."

Leonard sat up slowly and looked at his former best friend. There was not an ounce of jest in his expression. Sheldon was completely serious – he really was kicking him out. "Alright," was all he could say, and Sheldon left his apartment without another word.

XXX

A/N: I'm back from vacation! :D I know there's been a serious lack of Sheldon/Penny interaction, but I will rectify that soon enough! This story has kind of blown up in my face, I really originally meant for it to be no longer than 3000 words, then no longer than three chapters, and now, I really have no idea how long this is going to end up. But thanks for sticking with me on this! I really appreciate all your reviews and encouragement :)

Because I'm curious, just a question for everyone - are any of you reading this male? :D I usually assume most people on are female, for some reason.


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